Tulkarem:
The Israeli army said troops killed five Palestinian “terrorists” barricaded in a building on Saturday during a 12-hour siege in the occupied West Bank.
An AFP photographer spotted a heavy military deployment in the village of Deir al-Ghusun, near the northern city of Tulkarem.
Troops used a bulldozer to level a building and pulled at least one body from the rubble, the photographer reported.
Israeli forces “were involved in an extensive 12-hour counter-terrorism operation in the Tulkarem area,” the army and the Shin Bet security service said in a joint statement.
They said troops came under fire after entering the village to “neutralize a terrorist cell” and “retaliated” with “live ammunition, shoulder-fired rockets and other weaponry.”
An army drone registered two hits on the building before sappers started to 'dismantle' the building.
“The confrontation ended with the elimination of five terrorists and the seizure of military equipment and weapon parts,” the joint statement said.
A member of an Israeli Border Police counter-terrorism unit was injured during the operation, it added.
Violence has increased in the already restive West Bank since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7. At least 496 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the area, according to an AFP count.
The Gaza war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 34,654 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled territory.
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