Israel kills Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad commander as death toll climbs in major West Bank operation

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that troops had killed five more militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including a senior commander of a Hamas-allied group, as eyewitnesses said the IDF operation there continued. Israel launched its largest West Bank military operation in years overnight on Wednesday, and says it has killed a total of 14 militants since then.

The Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad group issued a statement Thursday confirming the death of its commander in the West Bank’s Tulkarem area, saying Mohammed Jaber, also known as Abu Shujaa, died during a “confrontation with the occupation soldiers” in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem.

The group said his killing would increase “our people’s steadfastness, resilience, and determination to continue,” as Hamas warned in its own statement that his death and others in the West Bank would “explode the volcano of anger in the West Bank.”

As it mourned Jaber, Hamas said 10 of its fighters had been killed across different West Bank locations in the Israeli raids. Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, said at least 12 people had been killed, according to the Reuters news agency. The United Nations said Wednesday that children were among those killed.

Violence has increased in the West Bank since on Israel from its longtime stronghold in the other Palestinian Territory, the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 others hostage. 

The war launched immediately by Israel against Hamas in response to that attack has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave.

Palestinians have told CBS News they fear the raids are part of an Israeli campaign to bring the destruction seen for more than 10 months in Gaza to the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says more than 630 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, including around 136 killed and 41 injured in Israeli airstrikes. 

In the three years prior to October, OCHA said only six Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank, all during 2023.

At least 15 Israelis, including nine military personnel and five settlers, have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank since October, while attacks by Palestinians launched from the West Bank have resulted in the killing of 10 Israelis, as well as seven Palestinians involved in the attacks, the United Nations said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke out against the Israeli operation on Thursday.

“I strongly condemn the loss of lives, including of children, and I call for an immediate cessation of these operations,” Guterres said in a statement on social media. “Only an end to the occupation and a return to a meaningful political process that will establish a two-state solution will bring an end to the violence.”

contributed to this report.