An Israeli fighter jet attack has killed at least 18 people in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Thursday evening. The attack marked the first time Israel has used a fighter jet to carry out a strike in the West Bank since the 2000s, reported AFP.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the airstrike, calling it a “heinous crime” against civilians. The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa reported that the strike had targeted a packed coffee shop in the camp filled with civilians.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike, stating that it had been carried out by fighter jets in coordination with Israel’s internal security service and that the target of the strike was the head of Hamas’s infrastructure in the area.
This latest attack is part of a broader surge in Israeli military raids across the West Bank, which have intensified since the start of the war on Gaza on 7 October 2023. According to a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 695 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, with the majority of these deaths attributed to Israeli military actions. Dozens have also been killed by Israeli settlers, said the OCHA.
The Tulkarem refugee camp, home to more than 21,000 Palestinians, spans just 0.18 square kilometers (0.11 square miles), according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). The densely populated camp has been the site of multiple Israeli strikes and raids during the conflict.
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