Israeli Soldier Is Killed During Raid in West Bank, Military Says
An Israeli soldier was killed and another was severely wounded overnight during a raid in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the military said on Thursday. It was the latest in a series of violent Israeli raids in the city.
The soldier who was killed, a sniper team commander, “fell during operational activity,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a brief statement, which gave few details. Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported that one Palestinian man had been wounded in the raid.
Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, houses a refugee camp founded more than 70 years ago for Palestinians displaced in the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel. The city and camp are bastions of armed resistance to the occupation. Israel has conducted frequent raids there over the years, but they have become more common since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel that prompted a war in Gaza.
The military detained 28 people during the overnight raid and nine remain in detention, including Jamal Hawail, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, according to a statement from the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, which is linked to the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a nongovernmental organization. The council sets policy for Fatah, the political party that controls the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli statement did not comment on the arrests.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been detained in the raids, which Israeli officials say are part of counterterrorism operations against Hamas and an extension of the war.
The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, said this month that Israeli forces and settlers had killed more than 500 people in the West Bank since Oct. 7. In the same period, 24 Israelis, of whom eight were members of the security forces, were killed in the West Bank and in Israel in clashes or what Israel called attacks by Palestinians from the West Bank, Mr. Türk said.
