Israel has detained more than 70 suspects after the worst violence in the West Bank
Israel’s military said it arrested more than 70 suspects in the West Bank overnight and Saturday, a day after troops were deployed to the area following violence that left two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian civilians dead.
The troops remained in the village of Tell, north of the West Bank, where Friday’s clashes took place. Palestinians described the search as including a raid on a hospital in the city of Nablus, one of the most violent areas in the region.
Palestinians in the West Bank have faced violence as the Israeli government, dominated by immigrant leaders and supporters, has overseen an expansion of settlement construction over the past four years. The international community strongly regards the construction of Israeli settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
The soldiers were arrested during a raid on a West Bank hospital
“More than 50 armed soldiers and police stormed the hospital, terrorizing the patients,” Ghassan Barkat, director of Nablus Specialty Hospital, told reporters. He said the soldiers on Friday arrested, detained and insulted the staff and patients, raided the hospital departments and arrested a seriously injured man, Ali Hussein Ali Ramadan.
This should not happen in a health center,” said Barkat, adding that there were women and children there.
The Israeli military’s statement did not mention the hospital, but said more than 300 locations had been searched and described as Hamas terrorist group operatives, arms smugglers, “terrorists” and others arrested.
The circumstances of Friday’s events remain unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials have suggested that a group of settlers entered the Tell and confronted residents fearing an attack. The village is off limits to Israelis as part of Area B under the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians in Tell, and the military reported the death of two soldiers, one of whom was an immigrant from the local security forces. Two other Israelis and four Palestinians were injured, health officials said.
The Israeli military on Saturday said they arrested 11 suspects in Tell.
More than 80 Palestinians have been detained throughout the area, said Amin Shuman, president of the Palestinian Authority for Prison Affairs, calling them “an attempt to impose collective punishment and retaliatory policies” on Palestinian citizens.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas occupied by Israel in 1967 and Palestinians seeking an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.
Israeli strikes kill at least 4 in Gaza
Israeli strikes on Saturday killed at least four Palestinians and injured at least 15 others across Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials.
In a town south of Khan Younis, an airstrike killed a man and a woman, their bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, the hospital said.
In the north of Gaza, a car strike in the Jabaliya area killed one person and injured two others, according to officials at Shifa Hospital, where the deceased were taken.
A motorcycle strike in the Gaza City area, Sheikh Radwan, killed the local police director, according to the Ministry of Interior and Shifa Hospital.
A strike at the Gaza refugee camp in Nuseirat injured three people, according to a Belgian hospital, which received the injured.
And Israeli drones attacked the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the center of the city of Deir Al-Balah, injuring ten people, the hospital said. Chaos ensued as seriously injured men covered in blood were rushed to the hospital by onlookers.
The Israeli military said it struck a member of the Hamas military wing near Al-Aqsa hospital. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other strikes. The army has fired back at the soldiers, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations.
Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed near a Palestinian village in the West Bank, among a growing toll in recent weeks as Israeli violence against Palestinians has intensified. Local media reported that five Palestinian villages near Nablus were attacked by Israeli settlers on Friday.
Although heavy fighting has eased since a ceasefire weakened in October following a two-year war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli forces have carried out repeated attacks, killing at least 1,191 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, keeps detailed records of casualties that are seen as reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children made up the majority of the dead.
Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
The October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militias in Israel left around 1,200 people dead and saw 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, sparking the war. Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed more than 73,317 Palestinians, including those who have died since the ceasefire, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
