Woman and child killed in Israeli army operation in Tulkarm

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Monday that a woman and a child were killed during the Israeli army’s military operation in the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.

The ministry said in a brief statement, “A child and a woman were killed, and 4 citizens were injured by Israeli army bullets in Tulkarm.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the Palestinian ministry’s reports.

An AFP correspondent spotted Israeli military vehicles and a bulldozer on their way to the Nour Shams refugee camp east of the city.

For its part, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that its crews “are dealing with 3 injuries as a result of the storming of Nour Shams camp.”

According to the association, among the injuries were “severe beatings and injuries to an elderly woman (68 years old) as a result of shelling shrapnel, and a woman (48 years old) with shelling shrapnel wounds to the neck and back.”

On Sunday, the Islamic Jihad movement mourned one of its fighters from the Tulkarm Battalion who was killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a house in the Al-Manshiya neighborhood in the Nour Shams camp.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that “one person was killed and five were injured, including two in critical condition, as a result of Israeli shelling of the Nour Shams camp.”

The West Bank has been witnessing an escalation of violence for more than a year, but the situation has deteriorated since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Last April, 14 people were killed in an Israeli military operation in the Nour Shams camp, which lasted about three days.

The Israeli army confirms that these incursions target “armed Palestinian groups,” but civilians are often killed as well.

At least 556 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the Gaza war began, according to Palestinian officials.