At least six killed in Israeli attacks on occupied West Bank’s Tubas region

Israeli forces shot a teenager dead and kill five others in an air attack on a car in the Tubas governorate.

At least five Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a car in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas and Israeli forces have shot dead a teenager in the Far’a refugee camp in the Tubas governorate, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israel said on Thursday morning that military aircraft took part in “three different attacks” on Palestinian fighters who “posed a threat” to their forces in the Tubas region.

Wafa reported that Israeli soldiers fired several bullets at the 16-year-old Palestinian boy, Majed Fida Abu Zeina, in Far’a, “abused him and prevented ambulance crews from reaching him”.

“Then they dragged him out of the camp using a military bulldozer,” the agency said.

Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian medics reported that five people were killed in an Israeli air strike targeting a car and two people were injured, one of whom was critical, according to Wafa.

The Reuters news agency later reported that the number of those killed in the drone attack had risen to at least six.

According to Wafa, the attack was carried out by an armed drone, and Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance crews brought the bodies of the five deceased men and two wounded people to the Tubas Turkish Government Hospital.

The agency also reported that Israeli forces were raiding the al-Ein refugee camp, west of the city of Nablus.

Israel began a massive military offensive across the West Bank last week that has killed at least 38 Palestinians and wounded 130 with the vast majority of casualties in Jenin.

On Thursday, Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim reported that the Israeli siege on Jenin continues with troops patrolling the area near the Jenin refugee camp as well as the city of Jenin.

“Palestinians have been telling us that the destruction is continuing not just to the roads, but also to the homes inside the camp,” she said. “Many people have been lacking a lot of medicine and food. And they’ve been trying to see where the Israeli vehicles are to try and avoid them and go to search for some food and some medicine.”

The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement on Wednesday that Israeli forces were using “lethal war-like tactics” in the West Bank and that Palestinian children have been among those killed.

The military raids, mostly concentrated on the Tulkarem and Jenin refugee camps, constitute Israel’s largest assault on the occupied territory since the second Intifada in the early 2000s.

The raids have seen significant violence and numerous arrests, while roads and other infrastructure have been destroyed by Israeli military bulldozers, the OCHA also said, adding that it had mobilised organisations from the UN and beyond to assess the damage and humanitarian needs on the ground.