Palestinian parties called a general strike in Tulkarm governorate on Tuesday after an Israeli air strike on the Nur Shams refugee camp left five Palestinians dead and sharpened tensions in the northern West Bank.
The strike followed an overnight attack that Al Jazeera reported killed five people, among them three teenagers. Palestinian news agency Wafa identified two of the dead as Adnan Jaber, 15, and Mohammed Ahmad Elayyan, 16. Wafa said the other fatalities were Mohannad Qarawi, 19, Jibril Ghassan Jibril, 20, and Mohammed Ali Yusif, 49. The report said the strike took place amid a wider pattern of intensifying Israeli military activity in the occupied West Bank.
According to the report, Israeli forces have increased the use of aerial strikes in the territory since the war in Gaza began in October. The article said there had been about 50 Israeli air attacks in the West Bank since the start of the war, with many concentrated in Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus. It also said Israeli forces were targeting leaders of armed resistance groups in the camp.
The strike drew immediate political reaction. Hamas condemned the attack and urged Palestinians in the West Bank to intensify their struggle against Israel’s occupation, according to Al Jazeera’s report. The general strike in Tulkarm governorate was one of the first visible signs of that response.
The broader backdrop is a sharp rise in violence across the West Bank. The same report said Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian man and wounded six others in Wadi Rahal, near Bethlehem, on the same day. Wafa, citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health, identified the man as Khalil Salem Khalawi, 40. It said he died after settlers attacked homes near a boys’ school and opened fire at residents.
Wafa also quoted the head of the village council, who said Israeli forces entered the area to protect settlers and fired sound bombs and tear gas at residents. Separately, B’Tselem published a video showing an Israeli settler threatening to rape a Palestinian man in another West Bank incident, underscoring the level of settler violence described in the report.
The latest killings in Nur Shams are part of a conflict that has repeatedly spilled into West Bank refugee camps and nearby towns. In the account published by Al Jazeera, Israeli forces said they were trying to hit armed fighters who had used improvised explosive devices against Israeli vehicles and troops during raids. Palestinian residents, meanwhile, described a widening cycle of deadly raids, settler attacks and reprisals that has made normal life increasingly difficult in the area.
