Israeli fire kills 4 in Gaza Strip, 3 in the occupied West Bank
Israeli fire has killed four people and wounded 14 in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials said, even as a fragile ceasefire with Hamas has largely held.
Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians who the army says had approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas in violation of the January truce.
Israel last week suspended supplies of goods and electricity to the territory of more than 2 million Palestinians as it tries to pressure the militant group to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended March 1. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
Hamas instead wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire's more difficult second phase, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.
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Palestinians say settlers attacked a garage in West Bank
Palestinians say settlers attacked a garage in the occupied West Bank overnight, torching three cars.
Rafaat Sabah, the owner of the garage, said the attack overnight was not the first. He said settlers had broken into his garage previously and stolen oil, tools and other things. This time they set fire to cars belonging to his customers, he said.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
Marwan Sabah, head of the Umm Safa village council, said settlers have recently brought livestock to graze on village lands with the aim of eventually taking them over.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence, including settler attacks on Palestinians, since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there.
Over 500,000 settlers with Israeli citizenship live in well over 100 settlements across the West Bank, ranging from hilltop outposts to fully-developed suburbs. The territory's 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns.
Funeral held for a Palestinian struck by an Israeli military vehicle
Palestinians held a funeral on Tuesday for a 32-year-old man who died after being struck by an Israeli military vehicle in the volatile West Bank city of Jenin.
The military described Monday's incident as an accident, saying the man rode a motorcycle into an intersection where it collided with the military vehicle.
Israel has been carrying out a major military operation in Jenin in recent weeks that it says is aimed at rooting out militants. Palestinians view such operations as a way of cementing Israeli control over the territory, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Israeli official says violence in Syria amounts to 'ethnic cleansing'
Israel's deputy foreign minister said Tuesday that deadly sectarian violence in neighboring Syria amounted to "ethnic cleansing" and said Israel was working to prevent a threat along its border from Syria's new "jihadi regime."
"Israel is committed to preventing what we saw in Syria this weekend from happening on our border," Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said at a news conference in Jerusalem.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians, most of them from ousted leader Bashar Assad's Alawite community. The Associated Press could not independently verify these numbers.
Since Islamist-led insurgents ousted Assad in December, Israel has voiced concern that the group could seize Syrian military assets and use them against it, or that instability could spill over into its territory.
Israel has deployed troops inside a buffer zone and vowed to prevent the new Syrian forces from entering the area south of Damascus. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets struck military targets in southern Syria, including radars and equipment.
3 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank
The Palestinian Health Ministry says three Palestinians, including a 58-year-old woman, were killed by Israeli fire in the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said troops killed two militants in an exchange of fire in Jenin and arrested 10 others. It said its forces eliminated a third militant who had fired at them during the operation and destroyed two vehicles loaded with weapons.
Israel launched a large-scale military operation centered on Jenin shortly after reaching a fragile ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in January. Troops have destroyed homes and infrastructure, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes across the northern West Bank.
4 killed in Gaza in the past 24 hours, Palestinian officials say
The Gaza Health Ministry says four people have been killed by Israeli fire and another 14 wounded over the past 24 hours.
The ministry said Tuesday that rescuers had also retrieved 32 bodies from under the rubble.
The four killed included three brothers hit by a drone strike in central Gaza on Monday and a woman killed by a drone strike Tuesday in the southern city of Rafah, the ministry said.
The latest deaths brought the overall Palestinian death toll from the war to 48,503. More than 110,000 people have been wounded, according to the ministry.
The ministry says women and children make up most of the dead but does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its toll. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 people.
