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Six killed in Israeli attacks on West Bank - Hamas

A Palestinian activist lifts a national flag towards an Israeli armoured vehicle and a bulldozer during a raid in Tulkarem this week
A Palestinian activist lifts a national flag towards an Israeli armoured vehicle and a bulldozer during a raid in Tulkarem this week

Israeli strikes in the occupied West Bank killed six people, including the son of a prominent jailed militant, Palestinian health officials said today.

Israel has been carrying out large-scale raids in the territory over the past week which it says are aimed at dismantling militant groups and preventing attacks.

Palestinians fear a widening of the war in Gaza.

The strikes overnight in the northern West Bank town of Tubas killed six people, including Mohammed Zubeidi, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

His father, Zakaria Zubeidi, was a well-known militant commander during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, and took part in a rare jail break in 2021 before being arrested and returned to prison days later.

The Israeli military said it conducted three airstrikes in Tubas on militants who threatened its soldiers.

A man takes cover during an Israeli strike in the Zeitoun district on the outskirts of Gaza City

There were further deaths in Gaza also.

Palestinian health officials say an Israeli strike on a tent camp near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed four men and wounded two children.

Hospital officials confirmed the toll and an Associated Press reporter saw the bodies.

Another man was killed in an airstrike in the built-up Al-Faraa refugee camp after allegedly hurling a firebomb at Israeli forces.

The Israeli military confirmed that it had carried out what it called a precise strike on a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group that it said was embedded in a humanitarian zone.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,878 people, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Most of the dead are women and children, according to the United Nations' rights office.

Netanyahu rejects Hamas ceasefire claims

Hamas has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to "thwart" a Gaza ceasefire agreement, after he said that the Palestinian militant group has "rejected everything" in negotiations.

The blame trading comes as Mr Netanyahu faces pressure to seal a deal that would free remaining hostages, after Israeli authorities announced on Sunday the deaths of six, whose bodies were recovered from a Gaza tunnel.

Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing back against increasing pressure to deliver a ceasefire deal

"We're trying to find some area to begin the negotiations," the Israeli leader said, claiming that Hamas are refusing to cooperate.

Mr Netanyahu maintains that Israel must retain control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border to prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas, whose 7 October attack on Israel started the war.

Around 1,205 people were killed in the onslaught, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, according to official Israeli figures.

Of 251 hostages seized, 97 remain in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead. Scores were released during a one-week truce in November.

Hamas is demanding complete Israeli withdrawal from the the Philadelphi Corridor and said that the prime minister's insistence on the border zone "aims to thwart reaching an agreement".

"We warn against falling into the trap of Netanyahu and his tricks, who uses negotiations to prolong the aggression against our people," it said in a statement.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington thinks "there are ways to address" the impasse.

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets to demand a ceasefire agreement

At Israeli protests in several cities this week, Mr Netanyahu's critics have blamed him for hostages' deaths, saying he has refused to make necessary concessions for striking a ceasefire deal.

"We are just waiting for them to come back to us, to come back alive and not in coffins," said Anet Kidron, whose community of Kibbutz Beeri was attacked in October.

Key mediator Qatar said on Tuesday that Israel's approach was "based on an attempt to falsify facts and mislead world public opinion by repeating lies".

Such moves "will ultimately lead to the demise of peace efforts," Qatar's foreign ministry said.

Israeli troops have destroyed infrastructure in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank

Israel has killed at least 35 Palestinians across the northern West Bank since its assault there started on 28 August, according to figures released by the health ministry, including children and militants.

One Israeli soldier died in Jenin, where the majority of the Palestinian fatalities have been.

"Panic spread as the army was blowing up everything around without taking into consideration that there were children," Hanan Natour, a resident of Jenin refugee camp, said.

Israeli troops have destroyed infrastructure in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank, with the UN reporting the military restricting hospital access and using "war-like tactics".

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has left the territory in ruins, with the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure blamed for the spread of disease.

The humanitarian crisis has led to the territory's first polio case in 25 years, prompting a major vaccination effort launched Sunday with localised "humanitarian pauses" in fighting.

Nearly 200,000 children in central Gaza have received a first dose of a polio vaccine

Nearly 200,000 children in central Gaza have received a first dose, the World Health Organization said, with a second stage under way in the south today before medics move north.

The White House said that 189,000 children had received their first dose.

The campaign aims to fully vaccinate more than 640,000 children, with second doses due in about four weeks.