JERUSALEM/JENIN, West Bank — Israeli troops killed a local commander of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad movement in the West Bank and four other militants on Thursday in a gunbattle during one of the largest assaults in the Israeli-occupied territory for months.
The military said it killed Muhhamad Jabber, known as Abu Shujaa, the head of a network of fighters in the adjacent Nur Shams refugee camp, during a “significant exchange of fire” around a mosque in the city of Tulkarm in which four other Palestinian fighters were also killed.
The Tulkarm division of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing confirmed his death, which brought the total number of Palestinians killed during the past two days to 17, and said fighters had attacked Israeli forces near the Abu Ubaida mosque.
The operation began in the early hours of Wednesday with hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel carriers raiding the flashpoint cities of Tulkarm, Jenin and areas in the Jordan Valley.
There was also a complete network outage at Jawwal, one of the two main telecommunications companies in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, according to the Reuters witness.
In Jenin earlier, Israeli bulldozers edged along empty, rubbish-strewn streets as the sound of drones pierced the sky.
The troops searched ambulances on the streets and in front of Jenin’s main hospital, having blocked off access to it on Wednesday to prevent fighters from seeking refuge there.
United Nations Secretary general Antonio Guterres said Israel’s launch of large scale military operations was “deeply concerning” and called for an immediate halt.
In response, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon said the operations had a clear goal: “preventing Iranian terror-by-proxy that would harm Israeli civilians.”