Israeli forces kill eight Palestinians in West Bank: medics

Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, seven of them in clashes during a raid in the town of Tulkarm near the 1948 borders with Israel, Palestinian medics and local media said.

The Israeli army and police claimed that their forces entered Tulkarm to detain suspected militants and killed several Palestinian gunmen when clashes broke out. Israel also carried out an airstrike on Tulkarm.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the air strike was carried out by a drone and killed three people.

The Tulkarm Brigades, a local armed group, issued a statement saying it mourned the seven who were killed but it did not claim them as members. They were laid to rest on Wednesday.

Subsequently, video circulating on social media showed Israeli bulldozers destroying a monument to the founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat in Tulkarm.

الجيش الإسرائيلي يدمّر نصب رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية السابق #ياسر_عرفات على مدخل مخيم #طولكرم في #الضفة_الغربية. pic.twitter.com/kkTF1Pa34h

— Joe Hammoura (@joehammoura) November 14, 2023

Tuesday's raid came after the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, put out a video claiming two attacks near the northern West Bank city of Nablus two days previously.

An eighth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire on Tuesday in Beit Aynoun, north of the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, medical officials said.

Israeli forces have increased violent and deadly raids - in addition to the use of airstrikes - across the occupied West Bank since 7 October, killing at least 196 Palestinians, authorities say.

Anger over the war has risen in the West Bank and many parts of the world, and calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are growing.