Israeli attack in West Bank city leaves 7 dead and journalist injured, Palestinians say

Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing seven Palestinians, including a doctor and a teenager, during a major operation that involved dozens of vehicles and continued into the night, witnesses and Palestinian health authorities said.

The Israeli military said the operation targeted armed militants in the city, which it called a long-standing centre for groups including Hamas, Fatah and the Islamic Jihad, and it said a number of Palestinian gunmen were shot.

"Undercover forces raided the area suddenly and they were firing at any moving body in the street," said ambulance driver Hazim Masarwa. "They were targeting anything moving."

Heavy-tracked armoured bulldozers tore up streets near the centre of the city, protected by Israeli forces in at least 20 vehicles. Photojournalist Amr Manasra says he was hit by shrapnel while he was covering the raid inside the refugee camp.

"We tried to tell them we were journalist and, of course, there was no one in the street except us," he said in an interview Tuesday that was provided to CBC News. "When we got close ... they opened fire directly on us."

Video footage later posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, shows Manasra in a navy blue press vest rolling onto a stretcher to receive medical help.

Authorities said a teacher and a doctor, both of whom were on their way to work in the city, as well as a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old were among the seven people killed. There was no immediate information on the identities of the other dead, or the nine wounded, as the operation continued throughout the morning.

"Jenin hospital is the main governmental hospital in Jenin, and it is surrounded now," said hospital director Wissam Baker. "It looks it will be tough hours ahead, because the [Israeli] occupation is gathering more forces."

He said the hospital's specialist surgeon was among those killed, after he was shot while on his way to work.

The occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want to have as the core of a future independent state along with the Gaza Strip, has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza last year, and a major crackdown by Israeli security forces, which have made thousands of arrests.

In the seven months since the start of the war, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them armed militants fighting Israeli forces, but others including stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians. Several have also been killed in clashes with Israeli settlers.

Israeli forces thrust deeper into Jabalia in northern Gaza on Tuesday, striking a hospital and destroying residential areas with tank and air bombardments, residents said, while Israeli airstrikes killed at least five people in Rafah in the south.

In Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced civilians 75 years ago, the Israeli army used bulldozers to clear shops and property near the local market, residents said, in a military operation that began almost two weeks ago.

Israel said it has returned to the camp, where it claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago, to prevent the militant group that controls Gaza from regrouping.