Israel pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank for a fourth day Saturday, while fierce fighting raged in the nearly 11-month Gaza war.
As Palestinian militants fought Israeli troops in Jenin refugee camp, a local official said soldiers had destroyed most of the streets while power and water have been cut off.
A Gaza health official meanwhile said vaccinations had begun there following the first confirmed polio case in the besieged Palestinian territory in 25 years.
The World Health Organization says Israel has agreed to a series of three-day “humanitarian pauses” to facilitate the polio vaccination drive, which an international aid worker told AFP would start in earnest Sunday.
COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body which oversees civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said it would begin at 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
In the northern West Bank, clashes and explosions persisted in Jenin, and both the health ministry and the Red Crescent reported two more Palestinians killed there.
Israel’s military said a 20-year-old soldier was killed and another severely wounded.
Earlier, the military said two Palestinians were killed while attempting to carry out separate bombings overnight in the southern West Bank.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, hailed those attacks as “heroic”.
Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, said it “congratulates” those involved in what it called a “coordinated attack”.
– ‘Worst day’ –
At least 22 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since Wednesday in simultaneous raids in several cities across the northern West Bank.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 14 of the dead were members of their armed wings.
Israel said it had killed “14 terrorists” since Wednesday in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Since Friday, soldiers have concentrated operations on Jenin and its refugee camp, a densely-populated community which has long been bastions of Palestinian armed groups.
Visiting the city Saturday, Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said his forces “have no intention of letting terrorism (in the West Bank) raise its head” to threaten Israel.
Early Saturday, an AFP photographer in Jenin reported ongoing clashes and said the streets were mostly empty.
“I think it’s the worst day since the start of the raid,” said Jenin Government Hospital director Wisam Bakr.
Water and electricity were cut off from the hospital during the raid, forcing it to rely on a generator and water tank, he told AFP.
Later Saturday, Bashir Matahine from the Jenin municipality told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that electricity and water “are completely cut off” in Jenin refugee camp and that “80 percent” of the city’s neighbourhoods no longer have water.
He said Israeli bulldozers had dug up 70 percent of the streets, “destroying the water and sewage networks, as well as cables for electricity and telecommunications”.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.
Twenty Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Britain, France and Spain have all expressed concerns about Israel’s West Bank operation.
– Hezbollah drones –
In Gaza, Israel pushed on with its deadly offensive in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said it counted 42 people killed in Israeli strikes across the territory on Saturday.
The fighting has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, 103 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,691 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The Israeli army said its forces found “a number of bodies” during fighting in Gaza and were working to identify them, a process it warned would take “several hours”.
Israeli media reported the bodies were possibly those of hostages, though the army asked the public to “refrain from spreading rumours”.
Israeli troops have during the war taken scores of Palestinian bodies, digging up multiple graveyards, some hundreds of which have been returned unidentified for mass burial in Gaza.
The war has drawn in Iran-backed groups from around the region and raised fears of a wider conflict.
On Saturday, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it had launched “explosives-laden drones” at Israel’s Beit Hillel barracks “in response” to Israeli attacks.
