The Palestinian Authority said Thursday it would cease coordinating with Israel on security after nine Palestinians were killed during a battle between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to cut security ties several times during crises with Israel but hasn’t always followed through. The Israeli army declined to comment.
The Israeli army said troops raided the Jenin refugee camp as part of an operation against Palestinian militants who had planned an imminent attack against Israelis. Soldiers killed at least six militants in the resulting battle, the army said, adding reports of additional deaths were being examined.
An uninvolved Palestinian woman—61-year-old Majda Obeid—was also killed in the fighting after she was shot in the neck while standing by the window of her home, according to Palestinian health officials and two of Ms. Obeid’s daughters. The Israeli army is looking into the reports, an Israeli army spokesman said.
Another Palestinian died from wounds sustained during separate clashes with Israeli forces near Jerusalem, raising Thursday’s total death toll to 10, the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said. The Israeli army referred questions to police, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southern border threatened to retaliate for the killings in the northern West Bank. Around midnight on Thursday, they appeared to follow through with the threats. Two rockets were fired from Gaza, but both were shot down by Israel’s air defense systems, the Israeli military said.
When the Israeli army raids Palestinian areas, its officers often warn their Palestinian counterparts in advance so as to avoid potentially deadly mix-ups. Opponents of the Palestinian Authority say this makes Mr. Abbas and his colleagues partially responsible for bloody raids such as the one that took place in Jenin on Thursday.
Tensions across the West Bank have surged since a series of attacks by Palestinians and Arab Israelis—including several from the Jenin area—left 19 dead inside Israel between March and May 2022. The Israeli army responded by launching Operation Wavebreaker, in which the army stepped up its raids into Palestinian areas to break up suspected militant cells.
At least 146 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in 2022 in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the highest toll since 2004, according to the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal.
Israeli officials say most of those killed during Operation Wavebreaker were members of militant groups or involved in violence. At least some appear to have been uninvolved civilians, including a teenage girl killed by Israeli fire during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin in mid-December.
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