IDF brigade chief lightly hurt in blast during Tulkarem op; Palestinians report 8 killed
Col. Ayub Kayuf taken to hospital for treatment after device detonated against his vehicle; army says it conducted drone strikes on gunmen; Ramallah says 2 women among the dead
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The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday night that the commander of the West Bank regional brigade in charge of the Tulkarem area was lightly injured after a bomb exploded beside his vehicle during a counterterrorism operation in the city.
The Palestinian Authority health ministry reported that the ongoing raid by Israeli forces in the city had resulted in eight fatalities, including two women. The military said it had killed at least six gunmen in drone strikes and clashes, and arrested some 18 terror suspects.
The commander of the Menashe Regional Brigade, Col. Ayub Kayuf, was hit in the arm by shrapnel and was taken to a hospital for treatment. He was initially listed in moderate condition following the explosion, but the army later said his injury was mild.
The commander of the West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Yaki Dolf was also in the military vehicle during the blast but was unharmed, as were all other passengers.
During the ongoing operation in Tulkarem, at least six Palestinian gunmen have been killed, a military source said.
The gunmen were killed in three separate drone strikes and in clashes with troops of the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit, Duvdevan commando unit, and Border Police officers.
Ramallah officials said two women — Khawla Ali Abdullah Abdo, 53, and Bara Khalid Hussein, 30 — were among those killed in Tulkarem. Eighteen-year-old Fathi Said Awda Ubaid was also among those killed there, it said, adding he was fatally shot in the chest and abdomen.
Residents of the Tulkarem camp reported that the raid, which began in the early hours of Tuesday, involved bulldozers destroying roads. The IDF sometimes demolishes roads amid operations to tackle bombs planted along them.
On Tuesday night another drone strike wad carried out in the Jordan Valley, with the army saying it targeted a cell that was planting explosive devices aimed at forces operating in the area.
Violence in the West Bank has intensified since the war in Gaza broke out last year following Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on Israel.
The Israeli operation came amid an unprecedented crackdown by Palestinian Authority security forces on terrorism in the West Bank, in which two Palestinian officers were killed and several more wounded in Jenin on Monday.
On Monday, Maharan Kadous, a Palestinian police officer, was killed clashing with gunmen in Jenin. Kadous was the second Palestinian security officer to be killed within 24 hours, amid an operation that began about a week ago in response to an incident earlier this month in which terror operatives stole two Palestinian Authority vehicles and paraded them through Jenin.
The PA has a relatively strong presence in the southern and central West Bank, where it can maintain order. But in the northern part of the territory, especially the refugee camps in the Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem, it has struggled to exercise authority against terror groups.
The Ramallah-based government’s recent operations against terror groups are also seen as an attempt to demonstrate its capacity to govern the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been battling the Hamas terror group.
On Sunday, it was announced that Sahar Farouk Rahil, a PA security officer who served on the PA’s elite “presidential guard,” was killed by gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp.
In a statement following Rahil’s death, PA Security Services spokesman Col. Anwar Rajab said, “This crime only strengthens the services’ determination to pursue lawbreakers, to enforce the rule of law, and to ensure the security of the Palestinian people.”
On Monday, the Jenin Battalion of the Islamic Jihad terror group published — then took down and denied ever having published — a video of four operatives wearing suicide vests warning Palestinian security officers that if they entered the refugee camp the operatives were “ready to blow ourselves up.”
Separately, images circulated online Monday that appeared to show Palestinian security officers holding RPGs, a weapon not supposed to exist in the services’ arsenal.
According to preliminary reports, the PA forces are believed to have seized the RPGs from Islamic Jihad operatives during the operation, and are not known to have used them, according to Channel 12.
בישראל הופתעו הבוקר לגלות את אנשי המנגנונים הפלסטינים עושים שימוש ברקטת RPG במהלך המבצע לסיכול טרור בג'נין. גורמי ביטחון אמרו לכאן חדשות שלמנגנונים לא אמור להיות RPG, נשק שנחשב למדוייק וקטלני, ובין היתר בודקים כעת אם מדובר באמל"ח שנלקח על ידי המנגנונים שלל במהלך פעילות שעשו… pic.twitter.com/BD7OpzDcfM
— איתי בלומנטל ???????? Itay Blumental (@ItayBlumental) December 23, 2024
Last week, Palestinian security services arrested some 110 terror operatives, seized 100 explosives, and neutralized eight car bombs, according to reports. Meanwhile, some 32 gunmen have been wounded so far, and two killed, Channel 12 reported.
Sheikh Mohammad Salah, head mufti of the Palestinian Security Services, said of the deaths, “We don’t want a second Gaza in Jenin. Better that thousands of us die, as long as they don’t destroy Jenin and Palestine.”
The Times of Israel Community.