Israeli troops killed a youth at a hospital and read out Jewish prayers at a mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin during raids that Palestinian authorities said on Thursday killed 12 and that Israel said helped capture dozens of militants.
The Palestinian government declared in a statement that the desecration of the mosque by certain Israeli forces heightened religious tension and denounced the operation within Jenin as a "dangerous escalation." The Israeli army promised to discipline the troops.
The West Bank is essential to a future independent state, according to Palestinians. Israeli settlers in the West Bank who are accused of carrying out violent attacks on Palestinians should be punished, according to allies of Israel who support its war against Hamas in Israeli-occupied Gaza.
Israel has significantly increased settlements in the West Bank in recent years, leaving less land available for a future Palestinian state.
Even before the Hamas attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, which claimed 1,200 Israeli lives and sparked an Israeli onslaught that killed about 19,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank was seeing an increase in deadly slaughter. Israeli forces killed at least 287 Palestinians in the West Bank in the two months since.
The Israeli military acknowledged that it had killed "more than 10" Palestinians it considered terrorists during the Jenin raids. The Israeli military claims to have been ratcheting up operations against Palestinian militant organizations in the West Bank.
The majority of nations consider Jewish settlements constructed on territory Israel captured during the Middle East War of 1967 to be unlawful, and Israel, the Palestinians, and the international community have long disagreed about how to continue these settlements' growth.