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JENIN, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces raided a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, killing at least seven Palestinians, including a doctor, according to local authorities, in some of the deadliest violence in the territory since the war in the Gaza Strip erupted seven months ago.
The military said its forces struck militants during an operation in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank, which along with an adjacent urban refugee camp has long been a bastion of armed struggle against Israel. The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least seven Palestinians were killed and another nine wounded. Their identities were not immediately known.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group said its fighters battled the Israeli forces.
However, according to Wissam Abu Baker, the director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, the medical center's surgery specialist Ossayed Kamal Jabareen was among the dead. He was killed on his way to work, Abu Baker said.
Jenin, seen as a hotbed of militancy, has been a frequent target of Israeli raids, long before Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza broke out following the militant group's deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank fighting, many of them militants, as well as others throwing stones or explosives at troops. Others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Violence between Jewish West Bank settlers and Palestinians has also increased.
Israel says it is cracking down on soaring militancy in the territory, pointing to a spike in attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. It has arrested more than 3,000 Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem, which it later annexed, and the Gaza Strip, which it withdrew troops and settlers from in 2005. The Palestinians seek those territories as part of their future independent state, hopes for which have been dimmed since the war in Gaza erupted.