Border officer seriously wounded in West Bank clash, wanted terror suspect killed

A Border Police officer was seriously wounded on Sunday during clashes with Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Tulkarem this morning, during which a wanted terror suspect was killed.

Undercover Border Police officers had entered Tulkarem to detain Ahmad Awfi, 36, who the IDF, Shin Bet, and police say was wanted for his involvement in several shooting attacks at troops and Israeli settlements, as well as the execution of two Palestinians accused of spying for Israel.

A joint statement said the officers and IDF troops encircled the building where Awfi was holed up, and applied a tactic known as “pressure cooker” that involves escalating the volume of fire directed at a building to force suspects to come out.

A gun battle ensued and Awfi was killed and his weapon was seized, the statement said. The IDF said troops opened fire at other Palestinian gunmen who were shooting and hurling explosive devices at them.

The Israeli military said the Border Police officer sustained serious injuries in the clash and has been hospitalized.

The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry confirmed Awfi’s death as well as that of a second man, 19-year old Nabil Atta Muhammad Amer, apparently involved in the clashes with troops.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, identified Awfi as a local commander. His brother also called him “a member of the resistance.”

The deaths came with international concern mounting about unrest in the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7 shock attack on southern Israel sparked the Gaza war. That day, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists rampaged across southern communities, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostage.

The Israeli military has stepped up its near daily raids across the West Bank in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack, in operations aimed at dismantling Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas.

In a separate raid on the outskirts of Ramallah on Sunday, the IDF said troops detained a senior Hamas operative.

Since October 7, Israeli troops have arrested more than 3,100 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,350 affiliated with Hamas, according to security authorities.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry says that more than 300 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time.

Based on military estimates, the vast majority of those killed since October 7 were shot during clashes amid arrest raids, and many of them, according to data seen by The Times of Israel, were armed with either a firearm or an explosive device.

The IDF is aware of at least three cases of uninvolved Palestinians being killed by troops in recent months, and a handful of cases of settlers killing Palestinians, which are still under investigation.

Separately, the military also said Sunday that troops had shot a suspect outside the city of Nablus who approached soldiers after getting out of a vehicle.

“Despite the soldiers calling out to the suspect and receiving no response, the suspect persisted in advancing towards them, prompting the soldiers to take action and neutralize him,” a statement read.

Fatah said the man, a security officer, was “assassinated in cold blood” at the Beit Furik checkpoint outside Nablus, which is some 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Tulkarm.

In a speech on Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the situation in the West Bank as being at boiling point and warned that “we could be on the eve of a greater explosion.”

“The West Bank is the real obstacle for the two-state solution,” Borrell said at the Munich Security Conference.

Agencies contributed to this report.