The Palestinian health ministry says Israeli forces have shot and killed an elderly Palestinian man during a raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank, as a large-scale military offensive by the regime is underway in the occupied territory.
The ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 73-year-old Walid Lahlouh was killed by Israeli gunfire in the Jenin refugee camp after the regime forces attacked the area.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also reported that its emergency teams transported the victim’s body from the entrance of the camp to the hospital following the deadly shooting by Israeli troops.
The latest development came a day after at least six Palestinians were killed, and several others injured, in separate Israeli air strikes and raids across the West Bank.
Meanwhile, witnesses reported a “large” deployment of Israeli forces around the town of Tammoun, southeast of Tubas city.
The Israeli military also blocked the exits of the al-Fara refugee camp, as the regime’s military vehicles and two bulldozers pushed into Tammoun.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military claimed that a “tactical group” had begun operations around Tammoun and uncovered weapons, adding that it was “extending the counterterrorism operation... to five villages.”
Israel has ramped up violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank, carrying out continuous attacks and deadly incursions in the occupied territory over the past few weeks.
The Israeli military claims that its large-scale offensive, dubbed Iron Wall, is aimed at targeting resistance fighters of the Jenin Battalion.
Over the past few years, the Israeli military has conducted numerous raids in the West Bank, which escalated after the onset of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023. Palestinians have also been violently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers.
At least 859 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,700 others injured by Israeli military fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
Separately on Sunday, a local activist said illegal Israeli settlers have burnt a mosque in a village northwest of the occupied West Bank city of Jericho.
Israeli settlers burned a mosque in the Arab al-Malihat community, northwest of Jericho, West Bank at dawn today.
— Palestine Highlights (@PalHighlight) February 2, 2025
Follow us on Telegram: https://t.co/fvRn3KuApw pic.twitter.com/I0Vqj7v9RW
Hasan Mleihat of the non-governmental al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights noted that Israeli settlers also tried to torch a tractor in the Mleihat Bedouin community in the area.
“The mosque was completely burned down, but residents managed to stop the fire on the tractor,” he said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the Israeli settlers' aggression in the West Bank, calling for international intervention to stop it.
It went on to say that “settler militias and their terrorist elements” are increasingly launching attacks on Palestinian citizens and their properties.
“The Foreign Ministry views with great concern the colonial projects that fuel this ongoing aggression,” the ministry said, adding that it holds the Israeli regime “fully and directly responsible for its repercussions on the efforts made to establish calm, ceasefire, and end the cycle of wars.”