Israeli forces killed at least five Palestinians and wounded 91 more in an intense gun battle with militants that erupted during a raid in the occupied West Bank, said Palestinian officials.
The fighting, during which Israeli forces deployed helicopter gunships over the West Bank for the first time since the second intifada ended in 2005, is the latest incident in a sustained escalation in violence that has gripped the territory for more than a year.
Palestinian health officials said a 15-year-old boy was among those killed, and that 23 of the wounded were in a serious condition. A Palestinian photojournalist covering the raid was also among those injured. Israel said seven personnel — two soldiers and five border police — were injured during the fighting and had been evacuated for treatment.
Israel’s military said it launched the raid in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank, on Monday in order to arrest two people, and that there had been a “massive exchange of fire” with militants.
A military vehicle was hit by a “pretty advanced” explosive device at about 7am, and Apache helicopters were then deployed to provide covering fire while they attempted to extract troops in damaged vehicles, a military spokesman said.
The raid is the latest in a string of confrontations between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants since Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest government, widely regarded as the most rightwing in Israel’s history, took office in December last year, with ultranationalists in key security posts pledging a tougher stance against the Palestinians.
As the fighting was unfolding on Monday, Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline settler and minister in Israel’s defence ministry, demanded a more aggressive approach, saying Israel should “replace tweezer activity with a broad operation” in the north of the West Bank “to restore deterrence”.
“The time has come to use air forces and armoured forces,” he wrote on Twitter. “I will demand an urgent cabinet meeting on the matter.”
Hussein Sheikh, a senior official in the Palestinian Authority, accused Israel of waging a “fierce and open war . . . against the Palestinian people”.
“We are in the midst of a comprehensive battle on all fronts that requires the unity of our people in the face of this aggression,” he wrote on Twitter.
Even before Monday’s fighting, this year was already on course to be one of the bloodiest in the West Bank for more than a decade. Israeli forces have killed 114 Palestinians in the territory this year, while Palestinians have killed 16 Israelis, according to the latest UN data.
Israel began carrying out near-nightly raids in the West Bank last year following a rise in attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. However, Jalal Abukhater, a Palestinian analyst, said the raids had only boosted support for militant groups in cities such as Jenin and Nablus.
“Today’s use of helicopter gunships . . . is an indicator of how Israel’s bloody escalation over the past 18 months has thus far failed to stem armed Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank,” he said.
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