Two Hamas operatives killed in IDF drone strike in West Bank’s Tulkarem
The Israel Defense Forces carried out a drone strike on Monday in the West Bank city Tulkarem, killing two Palestinians that Hamas identified as members of its armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam brigades.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, the strike also wounded three people.
In a statement released Monday evening, the IDF and Shin Bet said that the strike “eliminated the head of the Hamas terrorist organization in Tulkarem.”
The statement said, “In a joint operation earlier today, an IAF aircraft struck in the Tulkarem area, within the Ephraim Brigade, and eliminated Ihab Abu Atiwi, who served as the head of Hamas’s terrorist organization in Tulkarm. Another terrorist was also killed in the strike.”
The military said that “Abu Atiwi was involved in numerous shooting attacks, including one targeting an Israeli vehicle at the Ramin Junction on July 16, 2024, in which three Israeli civilians were injured.”
In a statement, Hamas named the second slain member as Ramez Damiri, and said that their blood was not spilled “in vain” and their deaths would encourage “the escalation of the resistance and the continuation of its heroic operations.”
The IDF said the strike was part of the ongoing counterterror operations in the West Bank, which began earlier this month, centering on the northern city of Jenin.
A senior IDF officer in the West Bank division told reporters on Thursday that the operation, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, was launched to neutralize the so-called Jenin Battalion, made up of operatives affiliated with terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Previous raids on Jenin in the past year did not specify such a goal, the officer said.
Operation Iron Wall is the third major IDF incursion in less than two years in Jenin, a longtime stronghold of terror groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.
Since October 7, 2023, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas. According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 858 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time.
The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 46 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another seven members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Source » timesofisrael.com
