Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli army operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Israeli military and Fatah said.

According to the Israeli military, one of the three men killed was suspected of being involved in “terrorist” activities. The purpose of the operation, according to him, was to arrest him. Forces surrounded his home in the Noor Shams refugee camp, in the northwestern West Bank town of Tulkarem. Exchanges of fire followed. The other two tried to escape from the building, according to the same source.

The operation lasted about four hours and various “means” were used, always according to the Israeli army.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah spoke of rockets being fired at a residence with two dead.

The armed wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party (the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades) for its part reported that three of its members were killed. One was reportedly an officer.

A 24-hour strike was announced today in Tulkarem.

The already tense situation in the West Bank further worsened after the Israel/Hamas war broke out in the Gaza Strip on October 7. According to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry, at least 370 Palestinians have been killed since then, in raids by the Israeli army and in incidents involving soldiers or Jewish settlers.

Last week, members of Israeli special forces disguised as medical staff and/or women stormed a hospital in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, and killed three people the army said were Palestinian militants, including a critically wounded condition, who was bedridden.

In 2023, the United Nations recorded 507 Palestinian deaths in the West Bank. This is the highest number since systematic data on violence in the occupied Palestinian territory began in 2005.

The Noor Shams camp is home to at least 13,519 refugees registered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Many hope to one day return to the homes from which they, or their ancestors, were driven in the 1948 war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel.

The Israeli army captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War in 1967. About three million Palestinians live in this area today, including some 490,000 Israeli settlers in settlements that the UN considers illegal under international law.