NABLUS: Israeli troops killed 11 Palestinians on Wednesday in a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, while some 80 more suffered gunshot wounds, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Those killed “as a result of the occupation’s aggression on Nablus” were aged between 23 and 72, the ministry said.

Over 50 people were hospitalised with gunshot wounds, health officials added.

Top Palestinian official Hussein Al Sheikh decried the incursion as a “massacre” and called for “international protection for our people”.

Act of aggression follows appeal by UN peace envoy for immediate halt to violence

The death toll is equal to that of an Israeli army raid last month in Jenin, further north, which was the deadliest West Bank operation since at least 2005.

However, the Israeli military while confirming its forces were operating in the northern West Bank city said the raid targeted suspected militants “in a hideout apartment”. It claimed troops came under live fire but suffered no casualties.

An AFP journalist saw Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinians, who burned tyres and threw stones at military vehicles. After three hours, troops withdrew from the occupied West Bank city, the journalist said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics had treated at least 45 gunshot wounds and 250 cases of tear gas inhalation.

‘Illegal settlements’

The latest deadly Israeli incursion follows an appeal by United Nations Middle East peace envoy, Tor Wennesland, for the violence to be halted as an “urgent priority”.

“We have seen ominous signs of what awaits if we fail to address the current instability,” he told the UN Security Council on Monday.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for an end to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian lands. “Each new settlement is another roadblock on the path to peace,” he said. “All settlement activity is illegal under international law. It must stop,” Guterres said, adding that “incitement to violence is a dead end. Nothing justifies terrorism.”

During the first 53 days of the year, Israeli troops have killed 56 Palestinian adults and children. One Israeli police officer, nine civilians and a Ukrainian national have been killed over the same period, according to official sources.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2023