The Palestinian Authority reported on Wednesday that four Palestinians had been killed by an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military claimed the victims were a “terrorist cell” that had planted an explosive device.
The attack occurred in the Nur Shams camp, which has seen an increase in violence in recent weeks due to the Gaza war and an increase in Israeli settlers’ raids and attacks to levels not seen in decades.
Four individuals were “killed as a result of the occupation’s bombing of Nur Shams camp,” according to the health ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which is located close to the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Telegram that one of its aircraft had “struck a terrorist cell in the area of Nur Shams while they planted an explosive device”.
According to the Palestinian official news agency Wafa, the dead were men, aged 20 to 25, killed in a strike by an Israeli drone near the centre of the camp.
Violence in the West Bank, already elevated before the October 7 attack by Hamas that ignited Israel’s offensive in Gaza, has spiked since then.
According to Palestinian sources, an Israeli raid on the Nur Shams camp on Monday resulted in the deaths of a woman and a child and injured four more.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said at the time that 14 people had died in Nur Shams during a two-day Israeli attack in April.
A health ministry tally indicates that since the start of the Gaza crisis, Israeli soldiers and settlers have murdered at least 556 Palestinians in the West Bank.
An AFP count based on official Israeli numbers indicates that during the same period, Palestinian attacks in the West Bank have claimed the lives of at least 15 Israelis.
