5 more West Bank terrorists killed, Israeli military says

TULKAREM, West Bank — The Israeli military said it killed five more West Bank terrorists, including a local commander, as it pressed ahead Thursday with its deadliest operation in the territory since the start of the war in Gaza.

Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank — which have killed a total of 16 people, nearly all terrorists, since late Tuesday — are aimed at preventing attacks.

The raids drew alarm from the United Nations and neighboring Jordan, as well as from British and French leaders, who stressed the urgency of cease-fire in Gaza after nearly 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Beginning Sunday, Israel will pause some military operations in Gaza to allow health workers to begin administering polio vaccines to some 650,000 Palestinian children, the U.N. World Health Organization said Thursday. A case was discovered earlier this month for the first time in 25 years.

In the West Bank, the Islamic Jihad terrorist group confirmed that Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, was killed during a raid in the city of Tulkarem.

Israel said he was killed Thursday along with four other terrorists in a shootout after the five had hidden inside a mosque. It said Abu Shujaa was linked to numerous attacks on Israelis, including a deadly shooting in June, and was planning more.

Israel’s search-and-arrest raids continued for hours Thursday, including the city of Jenin.

Firefights also erupted in Fara’a, a Palestinian urban refugee camp in the foothills of the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli army said it struck and killed a group of terrorists traveling in a car. Their terrorist affiliations were not immediately clear.

The army also said it uncovered caches of weapons, explosive devices and other military equipment inside a mosque in Fara’a and arrested another terrorist in Tulkarem, where a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was lightly wounded.

Israel’s latest operation in the West Bank began late Tuesday in several locations, and Hamas confirmed 10 of its fighters were killed. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported an 11th death on Wednesday, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian.

The U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, called for an immediate halt to the raids, asking Israel’s government to comply with its obligations under international law and to take measures to protect civilians.

The overall toll of 16 killed in less than two days makes it the deadliest Israeli operation in the West Bank since Oct. 7.

The war in Gaza erupted that day when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. The terrorists are still holding 108 hostages, around a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.

Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not say how many were terrorists.

An Israeli military official said Israeli troops have made significant progress in the southern city of Rafah, overpowering Hamas’ battalions and destroying most terrorist infrastructure.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, the official told reporters on Thursday that Hamas’ Rafah brigade “has been mostly dismantled and can no longer operate as a military structure.” The official also said Israeli forces destroyed 80 percent of Hamas’ tunnels dug deep under the surface of Rafah.

The official added that the 52-year-old Israeli Bedouin hostage rescued by Israeli commandos on Wednesday was found in the Hamas tunnel network under Rafah.

Family members of hostages held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip gathered along the frontier to try to broadcast messages of support to their loved ones.

They set up a giant sound system on Thursday, hoping the captives might hear them.

“Hersh, Hersh, it’s Mama, Hersh,” yelled Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose 23-year-old son Hersh was among the roughly 250 people taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

“It’s day 328. We are all here, all the families of the remaining 107 hostages. Hersh, we are working day and night, and we will never stop!” she said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war. Most appear to have been terrorists killed in gunbattles during Israeli operations like the one this week.

Attacks against Israeli citizens have risen since the start of the war.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.

The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering towns and cities. Over 500,000 Israelis live in well over 100 settlements across the territory.

Hamas repeated its calls for Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up, calling the raids part of a larger plan to expand the war in Gaza. The terrorist group has urged security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which cooperate with Israel, to “join the sacred battle of our people.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the Israeli raids, but his forces were not expected to get involved.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a cease-fire that would see the remaining hostages released.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages have made progress.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing on Thursday, he said “the negotiators are bearing down on the details, meaning that we have advanced the discussions to a point where it’s in the nitty-gritty, and that is a positive sign of progress.”