Since Hamas’s surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, more than 580 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the United Nations, as Israel has ramped up military raids there and violence by extremist Jewish settlers has increased.
Many Palestinians have died in Jenin or its refugee camp, long strongholds of the armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad; in Tulkarm, a West Bank city near the Israeli border; and in the nearby Nur Shams neighborhood. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had begun a raid focusing on Jenin and Tulkarm, and that nine people it described as militants had been killed.
Here are some of the notable recent Israeli military operations in the territory:
July 3-5, 2023: Israel launched its largest military operation in years against armed groups in the West Bank, a raid meant to curb attacks by armed Palestinians on Israelis. Israel carried out deadly airstrikes, which had not happened there in about two decades.
Twelve Palestinians were killed during the operation, which involved about 1,000 Israeli soldiers. Militant groups claimed at least nine of them as members. One Israeli soldier was also killed, possibly mistakenly by a fellow soldier. Thousands of people fled their homes and Israel detained and interrogated many others. Here are pictures of the raid.
Oct. 19, 2023: At least 13 Palestinians and one Israeli officer were killed in clashes, less than two weeks after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel. At least five of the 13 Palestinians were children.
The worst clashes were in Nur Shams. Israel’s military said that it was “thwarting terrorist infrastructure and confiscating weapons” in the operation — and that Palestinians had fought back, shooting and throwing improvised bombs.
Dec. 12-14, 2023: An Israeli raid killed at least 12 people during a two-and-a-half-day incursion in Jenin. A 13-year-old was pronounced dead at a hospital after his father carried him there, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which said Israeli armored cars had blocked ambulances.
At least 34 other people were injured. The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a rights group, said that at least 100 Palestinians had been arrested.
Israel disciplined three soldiers for a video showing some of them singing a Jewish prayer in a mosque in Jenin during the raid. The footage had circulated widely online.
Jan. 7, 2024: At least nine Palestinians and an Israeli officer were killed during a day of violence. A drone strike killed seven men in pre-dawn clashes during an incursion into Jenin. Four were brothers, aged 22 to 29, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, Wafa, said.
Israeli soldiers killed an eighth man in the central West Bank, Palestinian health officials said. And a 3-year-old girl was killed, apparently by errant fire, when Israeli forces said they shot at a car that rammed a checkpoint near Jerusalem.
The Israeli border police officer was killed when a bomb blew up her military vehicle.
Jan. 30, 2024: Israeli soldiers raided a hospital and fatally shot a Hamas commander in a patient’s room. During the brief incursion, some of the soldiers were wearing medical garb, surveillance footage showed, as they brandished their guns in the hospital. Two other men were also killed in the shooting.
Read More: Recent Israeli Raids in the West Bank: A Timeline
