Israeli forces kill 7 in West Bank, arrest 37

In large-scale raids in the occupied West Bank overnight, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians and arrested scores more, Israeli military officials and Palestinian health officials said.

Israeli forces killed three in Jenin, two in Hebron, one in Nablus and one in Qalandiya, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The military said the attack in Jenin included an airstrike — a once rare but now increasingly common form of attack in the territory. It said Israeli forces killed Hamas militants after they threw explosives at the soldiers. Forces also found explosives buried under the roads of the Jenin refugee camp, as well as an underground space with ammunition.

In Nablus, Israeli forces demolished the home of a Palestinian militant whom they accused of carrying out a shooting attack in the town of Huwara earlier this year, killing two Israelis.

Across the West Bank, the military arrested 37 Palestinians, identifying 17 of them as Hamas militants. Israel has stepped its raids on Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank since the start of the war, leaving at least 141 Palestinians dead in what U.N. monitors say is the deadliest period in the territory on record.

The situation in the West Bank is "alarming and urgent", the United Nations said Friday, noting in particular the violence carried out by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian population.

While much attention has been focused on the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, "the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent", U.N. human rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a briefing in Geneva.