Another Israeli raid on occupied West Bank's Jenin kills one Palestinian

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man during another deadly raid on Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday, 17 August, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest Israeli violence in a city that has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Violence has gripped the region since last spring when Israel launched near-nightly raids on the occupied West Bank. The violence has escalated into the fiercest fighting in the West Bank in some two decades, and along with increased violence by radical Jewish settlers and illegal settlement expansion by Israel's far-right government, has fueled tensions in the region.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed as Mustafa al-Kastouni, 32. It was not immediately clear if the man was affiliated with a militant group. The Hamas militant group said its fighters engaged in a gun battle with Israeli troops in Jenin and lobbed explosives at the forces.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

This new death follows the killing of three Palestinians in Jenin by Israeli forces on 6 August. 

Jenin, a city where Palestinian security forces have little presence, has long been a bastion of armed resistance against Israel. The city and an adjacent refugee camp have been the focus of Israel's monthslong operation, with an intense 2-day offensive last month at the height of those efforts. Israel deployed armed drones, military helicopters and hundreds of troops, leaving vast destruction and killing 12 Palestinians, most of them militants. An Israeli soldier also died.

Israel claims the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the violence as a natural response to 56 years of occupation, including stepped-up settlement construction by Israel’s government and increased violence by Jewish settlers, and part of the ongoing incremental genocide by Zionist forces on the indigenous population since 1947. 

The ongoing Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank has surged to levels unseen in nearly two decades, with more than 220 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the start of 2023.

At least 27 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the beginning of the year.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.