IDF says 3 gunmen planning ‘imminent terror attack’ killed in West Bank drone strike
Suspects, all of them Hamas members, targeted near Palestinian village of Aqabah; troops raid scene, seize weapons following strike
An Israeli drone strike in the northern West Bank on Tuesday morning killed three Palestinian gunmen whom the IDF and Shin Bet said were planning an “imminent terror attack.”
The three, members of Hamas, were struck near the Palestinian village of Aqabah in the Jordan Valley.
Following the strike, the IDF said troops raided the area and seized four weapons.
While the IDF said it had killed three gunmen, the Palestinian Authority health ministry confirmed that two people were killed in the strike, and said that a third had been moderately wounded.
In a statement, Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that two of its operatives had been killed near Aqabah, and vowed to keep fighting against Israeli forces “until victory and liberation.”
The PA health ministry said that the wounded gunman and the bodies of the two killed in the strike were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Tubas.
It said that the IDF then carried out a raid on hospital grounds, and charged that troops had broken in, fired shots, and said they were seen “assaulting staff and patients, and arresting a number of them.”
The Palestinian Authority’s official WAFA news agency said that among those briefly detained was Dr. Mahmoud Ghanam, the head of the hospital’s emergency department. It said that five other medical workers were also detained, including the hospital’s general manager.
The IDF denied the claim in a statement to AFP, saying that an army unit had been “dispatched to collect the bodies and operated in the area of the Turkish hospital in Tubas,” but that “they did not enter the hospital.”
An AFP correspondent in Tubas confirmed that armored vehicles were seen stationed near the hospital and soldiers deployed around it.
The West Bank, which is controlled by Israeli security forces, has seen a sharp rise in violence since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
The onslaught was followed by sharp restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank and wide-scale counterterrorism operations there. On Wednesday, the Shin Bet said it thwarted an arms shipment to the West Bank by Iran, Hamas’s benefactor.
Since the Hamas onslaught, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the PA health ministry, some 800 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, 41 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.
