Qassam Brigades local commander among 5 killed in Israel attack on Tulkarem

Sources tell Al Jazeera Haitham Balidi, leader of Hamas’s military wing in Nablus, killed in car strike in West Bank.

At least five people, including a local commander of Hamas’s military wing, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Medical sources confirmed to Al Jazeera on Saturday that one of the people killed was Haitham Balidi, leader of the Qassam Brigades in the Nablus area. Another person was identified by a relative as one of the leaders of al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

The identities of the other people were not immediately clear. Family members went to a hospital in Tulkarem to identify the dismembered bodies brought there.

The Israeli military said the car contained a “terrorist squad,” without further elaborating. Air attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory have surged since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, with authorities recording at least 29 strikes which killed more than 80 Palestinians.

The attack took place as the Israeli army raided several towns across the West Bank.