The Israeli military said its soldiers killed five more militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank early on Thursday, including a well-known local commander.
There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the death of Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Tulkarem.
He became a hero for many Palestinians earlier this year when he was reported killed in an Israeli operation, only to make a surprise appearance at the funeral of other militants, where he was hoisted onto the shoulders of a cheering crowd.
The military said he was killed along with four other militants in a shootout with Israeli forces early on Thursday after the five had hidden inside a mosque.
It said Mr Shujaa was linked to numerous attacks on Israelis, including a deadly shooting in June, and was planning more.
The military said another militant was arrested in the operation in Tulkarem, and that a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was lightly wounded.
Israel has launched a large-scale operation in the West Bank. Hamas said 10 of its fighters were killed in different locations, and the Palestinian health ministry reported an 11th casualty, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian.
The secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, called for an immediate halt to the deadly raids, asking Israel’s government to comply with its obligations under international law and take measures to protect civilians.
“These dangerous developments are fuelling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority,” he said in a statement from his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the Hamas October 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there.
Nur Shams is among several, built-up, refugee camps across the Middle East that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, in which about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel. Many of the camps are militant strongholds.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
The three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering towns and cities.
More than 500,000 Jewish settlers, who have Israeli citizenship, live in about 100 settlements across the territory that most of the international community considers illegal.
