Israeli forces killed a local Hamas commander in the flashpoint city of Jenin on Friday as they pressed a major operation in the occupied West Bank for a third day, the Israeli military said.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Israel Border Police had killed Wassem Hazem, who they said was the head of Hamas in Jenin and was involved in shooting and bombing attacks in the Palestinian territory.
Two other Hamas gunmen who tried to escape the car they were all travelling in were killed by a drone, the IDF said, adding that weapons, explosives and large sums of cash were found in the vehicle.
Hamas confirmed the death of all three men, who it said were members of its Al-Qassam Brigades armed wing.
In the village of Zababdeh, just outside Jenin, a burnt-out car riddled with bullet holes stood against a wall where the driver crashed the vehicle after being pursued by an Israeli special forces unit, according to residents.
Villager Saif Ghannam, 25, said one of the two other men who escaped from the vehicle was killed just outside his house by a small drone strike that shattered nearby windows, while a second man was killed a short distance away.
Mr Ghannam said Israeli forces had removed the bodies, but large pools of blood remained on the ground where he said the men were killed.
The announcement came as Israeli forces continued a large-scale operation involving hundreds of troops and police officers that was launched in the early hours of Wednesday morning in Jenin and Tulkarm, another volatile city in the northern West Bank, as well as the Jordan Valley.
Israeli armoured personnel carriers backed by helicopters and drones pushed into Jenin and Tulkarm on Friday, while armoured bulldozers ploughed up roads in what the IDF said was an effort to destroy roadside bombs planted by Palestinian militant groups.
A top Islamic Jihad commander was also killed inside a mosque on Thursday.
Hostilities have escalated in the West Bank while fighting between the IDF and Hamas still rages in the Gaza Strip, nearly 11 months after Israel invaded the territory in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Clashes between Israeli forces and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon have also intensified in recent months.
At least 19 Palestinians were killed in the first two days of the West Bank operation, including the local commander of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad forces in Tulkarm, according to Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
The deaths have brought the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since last October — both combatants and civilians — to more than 660, according to the UN's humanitarian office, some by Israeli troops and some by Jewish settlers who have carried out frequent attacks on West Bank Palestinian communities.
Israel says Iran provides weapons and support to militant factions in the West Bank — which has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War — and the IDF has as a result cranked up its operations there.
The British government said on Friday it was "deeply concerned" by Israel's operation in the West Bank and said there was an urgent need for de-escalation.
"We recognise Israel's need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure," a Foreign Office statement said.
The spokesperson added the UK "strongly condemns settler violence", and that it was in no-one's interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank.
IDF shot UN vehicle due to 'communication error'
Earlier, Israel told the United States that an initial review found that shots were fired at a UN World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle in the Gaza Strip after a "communication error" between Israeli military units, a senior US diplomat said on Thursday.
"We have urged them to immediately rectify the issues within their system," America's deputy UN ambassador Robert Wood told a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza.
"Israel must not only take ownership for its mistakes, but also take concrete actions to ensure the IDF does not fire on UN personnel again."
The WFP temporarily suspended movement of its employees across Gaza on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armoured vehicles received "multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach" the Wadi Gaza bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt.
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