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Palestinian Gunman Kills an Israeli in West Bank

Israeli soldiers secure the area around a damaged car following an attack in the Kedumim settlement, north of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on July 6, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
Israeli soldiers secure the area around a damaged car following an attack in the Kedumim settlement, north of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on July 6, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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Palestinian Gunman Kills an Israeli in West Bank

Israeli soldiers secure the area around a damaged car following an attack in the Kedumim settlement, north of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on July 6, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
Israeli soldiers secure the area around a damaged car following an attack in the Kedumim settlement, north of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on July 6, 2023. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

A Palestinian man on Thursday opened fire near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, killing one Israeli, a day after Israeli forces withdrew from the largest military operation in the West Bank in two decades. The attacker was shot and killed by Israeli forces, the army said.

The shooting came on the heels of the Israeli withdrawal from the nearby Jenin refugee camp after a two-day offensive meant to crack down on Palestinian militants. The operation destroyed the camp’s narrow roads and alleyways, sent thousands of people fleeing their homes and killed 12 Palestinians. One Israeli soldier also was killed.

Thursday's shooting near the West Bank settlement of Kedumim raised questions about the effectiveness of the Israeli raid, which came after nearly a year and a half of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed in the West Bank. It also could prompt calls from members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government for additional military incursions.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler leader, lives in the area of the shooting. Smotrich also oversees planning of settlements in the West Bank.

The army said that the shooter opened fire on Israeli forces that had stopped his vehicle for an inspection. The man drove away and was shot dead after a brief chase.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the shooting as a “heroic act” and a “natural response” to the Israeli raid on Jenin.

The West Bank has seen a more than yearlong spike in violence that has created a challenge for Netanyahu’s far-right government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have called for tougher action against Palestinian militants only to see the fighting worsen.

Over 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people.

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Arab World

Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 15 in Qana, a Lebanese Town with Dark History of Civilian Deaths by Israel

A picture taken from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli strike targeting the village of Qana on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
A picture taken from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli strike targeting the village of Qana on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 15 in Qana, a Lebanese Town with Dark History of Civilian Deaths by Israel

A picture taken from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli strike targeting the village of Qana on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
A picture taken from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre shows smoke rising from the site of an Israeli strike targeting the village of Qana on October 12, 2024. (AFP)

Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah. Israel meanwhile struck Beirut's southern suburbs early Wednesday for the first time in nearly a week.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon's Civil Defense said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway.

In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four UN peacekeepers.

During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.

The strikes on southern Beirut were the first in six days, and came after Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as the Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the armed group.

The Israeli military said it targeted an arms warehouse under a residential building, without providing evidence.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian group Hamas, following the surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. A year of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war last month, and has displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.

Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.

Hezbollah's rocket attacks, which have extended their range and grown more intense over the past month, have driven around 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. The attacks have killed nearly 60 people in Israel, around half of them soldiers.

Hezbollah has said it will keep up its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly remote after months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar sputtered to a halt last month.

Israel, which invaded Lebanon earlier this month and has been carrying out ground operations along the border, has vowed to continue its offensive until its citizens can safely return to communities near the border.