More Palestinians killed in West Bank, death toll reaches 186 since start of Israel’s war on Gaza

Israeli forces killed one Palestinian in the town of Jenin and two others in the town of Arraba, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday. Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank on Sunday.

During the incursion, the Israeli army damaged infrastructure, including roads and power transformers, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

The deadly raid adds to hundreds of Palestinian casualties in the West Bank since the beginning of the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.

Israeli troops have killed at least 186 Palestinians and injured 2,500 in the West Bank in little more than a month, according to Palestinian authorities.

Israeli soldiers are also tightening movement restrictions and carrying out mass arrests of Palestinians in the area.

Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah, said raids have escalated significantly in the occupied West Bank in the past week.

“The raids have gotten to up to about 40 per day,” Jamjoom stated, adding, “That’s a huge increase from where they were earlier in the year, throughout 2023, when they had become an almost daily occurrence.”

In addition to the raids, West Bank residents are also facing heightened violence from armed Israeli settlers.

Settlers have killed at least eight Palestinians and forced hundreds out of their homes since October 7, according to Palestinian officials.

“Now [the settlers] are a bit more emboldened by the fact that there’s a war [going on],” Adam Bouloukos, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) affairs in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera.

“And their violence is much more considerable and much more lethal.”

Israel has promised to eliminate Hamas in response to its October 7 attacks in the south, which killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.

Since then, Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, killing at least 11,000 people, including more than 4,500 children, according to Palestinian officials.