Israeli airstrike kills at least two Palestinians in West Bank

Palestinian officials said two people were killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank on Saturday that the Israeli military said targeted a “terrorist cell” in the Jenin area.

“Two bodies were transferred to Jenin public hospital after the occupiers (Israeli forces) bombed a car in the center of the city,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the strike was carried out by an “Israeli drone.”

The military said in a statement that it had carried out an “air strike on a terrorist cell in the Jenin area.”

Video footage posted online showed a vehicle on fire in the middle of a street, while some images showed a crowd around a charred car, trying to open the doors.

“There are dead people in the car,” shouts a man as a stretcher is brought by rescue workers.

Since Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, violence has flared in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated geographically from Gaza by Israeli territory.

Since October 7, at least 635 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers, according to an AFP count based on Palestinian official figures.

During the same period, at least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli official figures.