Israeli forces in the West Bank killed 10 Palestinians on Thursday, officials in the occupied territory said, nine of them in a raid the Israeli military described as a ‘counterterrorism operation’.
The raid on the teeming refugee camp in the northern city of Jenin erupted into the worst day in the West Bank in years, with gunshots ringing through the streets and smoke billowing from burning street barricades.
Before the Israeli forces retreated in the middle of the morning, the Palestinian health ministry said that 20 people had been injured and the death toll from the fighting had risen to nine, including a woman.
Read Also: Tension As Israeli Police Kill Palestinian In West Bank
The military asserted that Israeli forces came under fire during a ‘counterterrorism operation to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terror squad’ and shot several enemy combatants.
Africa Today News, New York since its records began in 2005, the United Nations has never recorded such a high death toll in a single operation in the West Bank.
A tenth Palestinian was subsequently shot dead by Israeli forces in Al-Ram, near Ramallah, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said he was shot in clashes which erupted during a protest against the killings in Jenin.
The violence prompted the Palestinian Authority to announce it was cutting security coordination with Israel, a move criticised by the United States.
Among those confirmed dead in Jenin was Majeda Obeid, 61, who lived some metres (yards) from the house targeted by the Israeli forces.
Her daughter, Kefiyat Obeid, told reporters that her mother was shot as she peered out her window at the clashes.