Five Killed in Israeli Air Strike on Car in Tulkarem
- Israeli air strike kills Hamas military leader Haitham Balidi in the West Bank.
- Five people, including members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, died in the attack.
- The incident adds to rising tensions and violence in the region.
An Israeli air strike targeted a car in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, killing five people, including Haitham Balidi, a leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, in Nablus. Medical sources confirmed Balidi’s death to Al Jazeera, alongside another individual identified as a leader of al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
The Israeli military described the car’s occupants as a “terrorist squad,” though no further details were provided. The identities of the other victims remain unclear, with family members attempting to identify the dismembered bodies at a hospital in Tulkarem.
This attack is part of a series of escalating air strikes in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began on October 7, with at least 29 strikes resulting in over 80 Palestinian deaths. The Israeli military also conducted raids across several West Bank towns, causing significant destruction in Tulkarem and detaining individuals in Nablus, including a journalist. Additional incursions occurred in Jenin, Faqqa, Deir Abu Daif, Bethlehem, and near Ramallah, while activist Ramzi Abbasi was re-arrested in occupied East Jerusalem.
The violence has led to the deaths of at least 600 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, including 144 children. The number of ground raids and mass arrests has surged, with more than 9,300 Palestinians now in Israeli prisons, 3,400 of whom are held in administrative detention without charges.
The ongoing conflict is severely disrupting civilian life in the West Bank, with the UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees describing the situation as a “silent war” marked by water shortages and power outages. The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, and the International Court of Justice recently deemed Israel’s continued presence unlawful in a non-binding ruling.
