Six Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire yesterday Saturday in the West Bank, four of them in Jenin, a stronghold of armed groups in the northern part of the area under Israeli control for 56 years, the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry announced.

A 25-year-old doctor was killed yesterday morning in front of his home in Kabadiya, near Jenin. Another Palestinian was killed in El Bireh, near Ramallah.

The remaining four were killed by Israeli army fire in Jenin, during its invasion of the city with armored vehicles, which recently became the scene of the deadliest attack on the West Bank in almost two decades (14 dead), according to the UN.

Eyewitnesses told AFP that the Israeli army surrounded a public hospital in Jenin, as well as the Ibn Sina Clinic, and that men searched it for ambulances.

They also talked about fighting with automatic weapons.

The operation came against the backdrop of a ceasefire in the war that broke out on October 7, when Hamas launched an attack on southern sectors of Israeli territory that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. In retaliation, the Israeli military launched air, land and sea bombardments into the Gaza Strip, killing an estimated 15,000 people, including more than 6,100 children, according to Hamas’ health ministry.

At the same time, the already tense situation in the West Bank has since worsened, with continuous outbreaks of violence. Some 230 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli military fire or in settler attacks, according to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry.