In a new massacre... 18 martyrs as a result of the Israeli occupation's bombing of Tulkarm camp

18 Palestinians were killed and others were injured as a result of the Israeli occupation bombing of Tulkarm camp in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement: “18 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid on Tulkarm camp.”

The Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported that the martyrs fell in an airstrike launched by Israeli warplanes on a popular café in Tulkarm camp.

She pointed out that "Civil Defense and ambulance vehicles rushed to the scene, where the martyrs and wounded were transferred to the Martyr Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm."

The Israeli occupation army said early Friday morning that it had killed "the leader of the Hamas network in Tulkarm" in the West Bank.

He said in a statement that he identified the Hamas leader as Zahi Yasser Aoufi.

The Israeli Army Radio quoted a military source as saying: “For the first time since the Second Intifada, Air Force planes bombed the home of militants in Tulkarm.”

For its part, the army said in a statement that as part of a joint operation with the Shin Bet security service, “the air force launched a raid in Tulkarm.”

On Thursday evening, the Palestinian government called on the international community to take action to put an end to Tel Aviv's crimes in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

This came after a massacre that killed 18 Palestinians in an air strike, the first of its kind in the West Bank since the Second Intifada in 2000, which targeted the Tulkarm camp in the northern occupied West Bank with a fighter jet.

The government said in a statement: “We call on the international community and international humanitarian and human rights institutions to take urgent action to put an end to the ongoing crimes of the (Israeli) occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

She explained that "the Tulkarm camp massacre confirms that Israel is acting as a criminal force above the law, and it is time for the international community to put an end to these ongoing crimes, the likes of which have never been seen in contemporary history."

She stressed the continuation of her efforts to expose the crimes of the occupation internationally and in international courts, and to hold Israel accountable for its escalating crimes.

In this context, Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, in a statement, held “the occupation government fully responsible for the repercussions of this heinous crime against the Palestinian people, including children, women and the elderly.”

He said that it "comes as a continuation of the comprehensive war waged by this right-wing government (headed by Benjamin Netanyahu) against our people, our land and our holy sites, which has dragged the region into more violence and instability."

Abu Rudeineh explained that “the American administration bears the consequences of this ongoing and escalating aggression against our people for about a year, and it must intervene immediately to stop these Israeli massacres, which it supports with weapons, money and political cover.”

For its part, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Fatah, called in a statement to “make Friday a day of anger, escalation, and a comprehensive strike at all points of contact, in revenge for the souls of the martyrs of Tulkarm camp.”

Regarding the raid, the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that it was the first bombing of its kind carried out by an Israeli fighter jet in the West Bank since the Second Intifada in 2000.

In parallel with its war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, the Israeli army and settlers escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, resulting in thousands of Palestinian martyrs and wounded, and the arrest of about 11,000, according to official Palestinian sources.

With the full support of the United States, Israel is waging a genocide on Gaza, resulting in more than 138,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amidst massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

(Agencies)