By Ali Sawafta
RAMALLAH (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed three people including a 16-year-old Palestinian girl in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, as a major Israeli operation in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm continued for a seventh day.
The girl, identified as Lujain Osama Musleh, was killed in the town of Kafr Dan, just outside Jenin, where Israeli troops have been operating for days and where they demolished a house on Tuesday.
The military gave no immediate details of the incident but said it was looking into the report.
Two Palestinians were also killed in the city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters exchanged fire with Israeli forces in Jenin and Tulkarm, which have seen repeated clashes between Israeli troops and armed Palestinian fighters over recent months.
With the latest deaths, a total of at least 34 Palestinians have been killed during the operation, many of them claimed as members by armed factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad but several with no apparent connection.
One Israeli soldier has been killed in Jenin, while in an apparently separate incident, three police officers were killed by a gunman who fired on their vehicle near Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters and drones have been operating in Jenin and Tulkarm as well as other areas of the West Bank for the past week in a drive the military says is aimed at combatting Iranian-backed militant groups.
The operation has caused severe damage to infrastructure as armoured bulldozers have torn up large stretches of city streets, in what the army says is a search for roadside bombs, and destroyed or severely damaged houses and other buildings.
As it has gone on, aid workers have begun to warn that people in the area are starting to run low on food and water.
Paramedic officer Murad Khamayseh from Jenin, who works with the disaster unit in the Palestinian Red Crescent, said his unit had been distributing bread and water as well as milk, medical supplies and nappies.
“You are talking about seven days in a row, people were not ready for such a raid, aside from the fact that no one knows how long the raid will be,” he said.
The latest bout of violence in the West Bank has followed a surge in fighting since the start of the Gaza war in October. Around 680 Palestinians have been killed, many of them armed fighters from groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad but many stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians.
At the same time, more than 20 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, as well as around the same number in missiles fired from southern Lebanon, where Israel has been exchanging fire with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah for months.
(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)