18 said killed in Tulkarem airstrike on Hamas commander planning imminent attack
Head of terror network was allegedly preparing major terror attack on Oct. 7 anniversary; rare strike by fighter jet is one of the deadliest in West Bank in years
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli fighter jet carried out a rare attack in Tulkarem late Thursday, with the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry reporting at least 18 fatalities in one of the deadliest airstrikes in the West Bank in recent memory.
A joint statement from the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet said the strike targeted Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, a top Hamas commander in Tulkarem, along with six other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives.
Hamas’s military wing released a statement a day after the attack that confirmed Oufi was a commander and also named seven other members who were killed.
According to the military, Oufi was planning a terror attack “in the immediate time frame.” Military sources said he was planning a major terror attack on the first anniversary of the October 7 onslaught. The sources described Oufi as a “ticking time bomb.”
The joint IDF and Shin Bet statement said Oufi planned and led an attempted car bombing attack near the settlement of Ateret last month.
He was also involved in providing weapons to other terror operatives who carried out numerous attacks in the West Bank and in Israel recently, including those that led to the injury of Israeli civilians, according to the military.
The IDF and Shin Bet added that he “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks.”
“[He] intended to carry out an attack in the immediate time frame,” and therefore the strike was carried out, the IDF said.
The military has said it is on heightened alert for other attempts by Hamas to carry out attacks ahead of and on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre, both from the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The IDF has carried out dozens of airstrikes in the West Bank in the past year, but mostly with drones and helicopters, rarely with fighter jets.
شهداء ومصابون في قصف الاحتلال مقهى داخل حارة الحمام بمخيم طولكرم
الحديث عن عملية اغتيال .. pic.twitter.com/p08Tq2wkym
— الحـكـيم (@Hakeam_ps) October 3, 2024
On Friday, the military named another of those killed in the Tulkarem strike as Ghaith Radwan, who it said was a top commander in Islamic Jihad. Islamic Jihad also confirmed Radwan was a commander in the terror group.
In addition to the 18 Palestinians killed — among them eight and seven-year-old siblings Karam and Sham Abu Zahra — numerous other people were reportedly wounded in Thursday’s strike, which a source within the Palestinian security services told AFP was the deadliest in the West Bank since 2000.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman called for Israel to be held accountable for the “heinous crime,” in a statement that described the attack as a “massacre.”
Hamas condemned Israel over the “cruel attack” and warned it would prove to be a “dangerous escalation.” Other Palestinian factions also denounced Israel, with Abbas’s Fatah movement calling for demonstrations on Friday to honor the “heroic martyrs” of Tulkarem.
The United Nations denounced the strike as “unlawful.”
“The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF (Israeli security forces) during military-like operations in the West Bank that have caused widespread harm to Palestinians and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure,” the United Nations rights office said in a statement.
Tulkarem has been a focus of recent Israeli counter-terrorism operations in West Bank towns and refugee camps, as part of intensified near-daily military raids aimed at dismantling Palestinian terror groups following Hamas’s October 7 attack from Gaza.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 40 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Agencies contributed to this report.
