Israeli strike kills five Palestinians in occupied West Bank refugee camp

An Israeli air attack on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank has killed five Palestinians, including three teenagers.

Reporting from Ramallah, in the West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said on Tuesday the strike occurred overnight, with Israeli forces reportedly targeting leaders of armed resistance groups in the camp.

Israeli attacks in the territory have skyrocketed since its war on Gaza began in October.

“Medical sources tell us they’ve received the bodies and body parts of five Palestinians who were killed in the Israeli air strike on the Nur Shams refugee camp,” Ibrahim said.

“Israeli forces have been looking to target Abu Shuja’a, who has been one of the leaders, if not the main leader, of the Tulkarem and the Nur Shams battalion in the refugee camp, and he has survived several assassination attempts,” she added.

Palestinian news agency Wafa identified two of the teenagers killed as Adnan Jaber, 15, and Mohammed Ahmad Elayyan, 16.

The others killed were Mohannad Qarawi, 19, Jibril Ghassan Jibril, 20, and Mohammed Ali Yusif, 49, Wafa reported.

Jibril was freed as part of a deal between Palestinian group Hamas and Israel in November that saw the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons for captives in the Gaza Strip, Ibrahim reported.

Following the air raid, Palestinian parties declared a general strike on Tuesday in the Tulkarem governorate to protest against the killings.

Hamas condemned the attack and called on Palestinians in the West Bank to intensify their struggle against Israel’s illegal occupation.

There have been about 50 Israeli air attacks in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza – the majority of them in Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus.

“Israeli forces have been intensifying the use of aerial strikes against Palestinians, saying that they want to combat the Palestinian fighters who have been using IEDs, the improvised explosive devices, against Israeli vehicles and Israeli troops when they raid Palestinian villages, towns and refugee camps,” said Ibrahim.

Palestinian man killed by Israeli settlers

There has also been an uptick in violence in the West Bank due to attacks by Israeli settlers.

On Tuesday, settlers shot dead one Palestinian man and wounded six others as they attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Wadi Rahal, near Bethlehem.

Wafa, citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health, identified the man killed as Khalil Salem Khalawi.

The 40-year-old died of his wounds after Israeli settlers attacked homes near the village’s boys’ school and opened fire at Palestinians living there, the agency said.

Hamdi Ziyada, the head of the Wadi Rahal village council, told Wafa that Israeli forces raided the village “to provide protection for the settlers and fired sound bombs and toxic gas” at residents.

The Israeli military and police are investigating the attack, and will probe both the conduct of troops who responded, as well as the settlers who carried out the assault, The Times of Israel reported.

Elsewhere in the territory, a video clip published on Tuesday by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem showed an Israeli settler threatening to rape a Palestinian in the West Bank.

The video depicts a group of masked settlers trying to get a man and his wife to leave their land in the Wadi Rakhim area south of the city of Hebron.

One of the settlers follows the Palestinian man as he verbally harasses him, saying that he wishes he could meet him in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison.

“Rape in the name of God, as they say. You understand what I mean?” the masked settler says to the man, a reference to sexual assaults carried out by Israeli soldiers in the prison against Palestinian detainees.

Since the start of the year, Israeli settlers have carried out 1,334 attacks in the West Bank and killed at least seven Palestinians, Wafa reported.

“These assaults have been skyrocketing since the war started and Palestinians say the sense of impunity that Israeli settlers feel is allowing them to continue attacking Palestinians and their homes,” said Ibrahim.

The settlers are Israeli citizens who live illegally on private Palestinian land in both the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Israel started building settlements just after capturing the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the June 1967 Six-Day War.