Israel kills two Hamas fighters in airstrike in West Bank

Israel said it killed two senior Hamas fighters in an airstrike on their car in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Saturday and claimed they were involved in the killing of an Israeli.

In a joint statement by Israel's domestic intelligence service and the Israel Defense Forces, the militants were identified as Ahmed Abu Ara and Rafet Dawasi, both from the northern West Bank district of Jenin.

Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that it mourned the deaths of two fighters who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in Jenin.

The Israeli statement said the two militants were involved in planning an attack on Sunday in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank that killed Israeli Yonatan Deutsch.

Israeli authorities said at the time that Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a main road in the occupied West Bank, killing one person and wounding another.

Later that day, the al-Qassam Brigades said its West Bank-based fighters had killed an Israeli soldier at close range near the settlement of Mehola in the Jordan Valley and had “returned safely to their bases.”

Hamas said the operation was in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a school in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians had sought refuge. The Civil Defense Agency said at least 90 people were killed in the attack.

Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas broke out following the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and captured about 250 hostages in Israel. Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

In a move condemned by the United States, Britain and France, Israeli settlers killed at least one Palestinian in an attack on a village near the West Bank town of Qalqilya on Thursday.

The latest violence in the West Bank comes just as a new round of talks are set to resume in Doha next week aimed at ending ten months of fighting in the Gaza Strip.