Raided West Bank city holds funerals after Israeli army withdraws

Tubas, Occupied Palestinian Territories – AFP

The families of Palestinians killed in an air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas held funerals on Friday after Israeli forces withdrew following their latest raid in the territory.

The Israeli military had said earlier in a statement on Wednesday that its forces were engaged in a “counter-terrorism operation” in the area of Tubas, in the northern West Bank.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the military withdrew Thursday evening, finally allowing the funerals to go ahead.

The four men buried in Tubas on Friday were killed in an air strike at dawn on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

A fifth fatality from the same strike was buried on Friday in Tamoun, also in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli military said in its Wednesday statement that its aircraft had “struck and eliminated a terrorist cell consisting of five terrorists armed with explosives who posed a threat to (Israeli) forces”.

Hundreds of people walked through the streets of Tubas alongside the four bodies hoisted on stretchers and wrapped in white cloth for the funeral rites.

Some in the crowd waved the green flag of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and gunfire punctuated the chants of the mourners.

“I woke up in the morning to the sound of an explosion,” Ahmed Sawafta, father of one of the dead men, described the strike on Wednesday.

“My brothers came and told me that Yassin had been martyred,” he said, referring to his son.

Osaid Kharaz told the media at the funeral that Israel “is attempting to impose a new reality and undermine the popular support for the resistance (to Israeli occupation) in the West Bank.”

– ‘Full strength’ –

The military will use its “full strength” to strike Palestinian militants in the West Bank, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on September 4, amid a large-scale operation in the north of the territory that killed dozens.

Israeli forces this week also carried out operations in the northern West Bank governorate of Tulkarem.

The Palestinian Red Crescent and the health ministry both reported that one volunteer paramedic and a young woman were also killed during an Israeli raid on Tuesday.

The health ministry also reported three killed near Tulkarem city on Wednesday “as a result of an Israeli air strike on a vehicle”. The Palestinian Red Crescent gave the same toll.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday its air force had “conducted an aerial strike during the counter-terrorism operation” in Tulkarem, without specifying the target or reporting casualties.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has ramped up deadly raids in the territory since October 7.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.