Suspected terror leader charged over deadly 2024 West Bank bombing

Military prosecutors have indicted a Palestinian terror commander responsible for a roadside bomb attack in the West Bank that killed a soldier two years ago, the IDF says.

On July 1, 2024, a Panther armored personnel carrier was hit by a bomb in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem, killing the driver, Sgt. First Class (res.) Yehuda Geto, 22, and seriously wounding another soldier.

The army announces that the Military Prosecution filed an indictment against Kamal Khatib at the Samaria Military Court yesterday, accusing him of detonating the bomb that killed Geto.

Khatib had been a member and later the head of the so-called Nur Shams Battalion, a local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to the IDF.

He was arrested by the Palestinian Authority’s security services in February 2025, and transferred to Israeli custody on April 29 this year.

The indictment says that Khatib and other terror operatives detonated the explosive device, which had been planted on a road in Nur Shams ahead of time, using a cell phone.

In addition, the indictment accused Khatib of several other terror activities, including “managing and directing the Nur Shams Battalion, recruiting operatives for surveillance and manufacturing units, planting explosive devices, trafficking weapons, and transferring funds and military equipment to terrorists.”

He is charged with conspiring to intentionally cause death — the equivalent of murder under military law — attempted intentional causing of death, heading an unlawful association, trafficking in military equipment, and planting a bomb.