RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 in a daytime raid on the West Bank city of Nablus, officials said, one of the single deadliest operations in years.
Among those killed were a 72-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Palestinian armed groups said at least six of the dead were militants, including a Islamic Jihad commander who was part of the local Nablus Brigade.
Israeli forces announced the raid shortly before 10:30 a.m. local time and said it was targeting two members of the Lion’s Den, a Nablus-based armed group, and a local member of the extremist militant group Islamic Jihad. The army surrounded a home in the city’s dense and historic old city, which appeared to be the main target.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least six of those hospitalized were in critical condition. Most of the injured were hit with live bullets and dispersed around five hospitals in the occupied West Bank, it said.
The IDF said armed suspects “shot heavily” at its forces, as well as hurling explosive devices and Molotov cocktails. The IDF statement did not identify any Israeli casualties, and provided no details on Palestinian deaths or injuries.
It is the second historically deadly daytime raid in the West Bank in the last month — on Jan. 26, a similar incursion in the city of Jenin turned into a running gun battle that left 10 Palestinians dead, including a 61-year-old woman.
Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed nearly 60 Palestinians, both fighters and civilians, since the start of 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry. At least 11 Israelis have also been killed this year in attacks by Palestinians.
Since a spate of deadly violence inside Israel last spring, the Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids across the West Bank, mostly carried out in the middle of the night to arrest militants it says were involved in, or planning, attacks.
Israel has struggled to control the resurgence of armed fighters, many of them young and impoverished, organizing locally outside the traditional political parties and disillusioned by the failure of political negotiations to end the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
The rise in violence has coincided with the election of Israel’s most right-wing government in years, which includes settler activists who have pushed for an expansion of settlements and signaled a desire to annex the entire West Bank.
Hazem Balousha contributed reporting from Gaza City.
