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Raided West Bank City Holds Funerals after Israeli Army Withdraws

Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
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Raided West Bank City Holds Funerals after Israeli Army Withdraws

Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)

The families of Palestinians killed in an air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas held funerals on Friday after Israeli forces withdrew following their latest raid in the territory.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that its forces were engaged in a "counter-terrorism operation" in the area of Tubas, in the northern West Bank.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the military withdrew Thursday evening, allowing the funerals to go ahead.

The four men buried in Tubas on Friday were killed in an air strike at dawn on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

A fifth fatality from the same strike was buried on Friday in Tamoun, also in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli military said in its Wednesday statement that Israeli aircraft had "struck and eliminated a terrorist cell consisting of five terrorists armed with explosives who posed a threat to (Israeli) forces".

On Friday morning, hundreds of people walked through the streets of Tubas alongside the four bodies hoisted on stretchers and wrapped in white cloth.

Some in the crowd waved the green flag of the Palestinian movement Hamas and gunfire punctuated the chants of the mourners.

"I woke up in the morning to the sound of an explosion," Ahmed Sawafta, father of one of the dead men, told AFP, describing the strike on Wednesday.

"My brothers came and told me that Yassin had been martyred," he said, referring to his son.

Osaid Kharaz, who identified himself as a Hamas activist, told AFP at the funeral that Israel "is attempting to impose a new reality and undermine the popular support for the resistance (to Israeli occupation) in the West Bank."

- 'Full strength' -

The military will use its "full strength" to strike Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on September 4, amid a large-scale operation in the north of the territory that killed dozens.

Israeli forces this week also carried out operations in the northern West Bank governorate of Tulkarem.

The Palestinian Red Crescent and the health ministry both reported that one volunteer paramedic and a young woman were killed during an Israeli raid there on Tuesday.

The health ministry also reported three killed near Tulkarem city on Wednesday "as a result of an Israeli air strike on a vehicle". The Palestinian Red Crescent gave the same toll.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement that the three killed in the strike were its fighters.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday its air force had "conducted an aerial strike during the counter-terrorism operation" in Tulkarem, without specifying the target or reporting casualties.

Wafa reported that Israeli forces also withdrew from Tulkarem on Thursday and that funerals were held there on Friday.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has ramped up deadly raids in the territory since Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.

At least 24 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the territory during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

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Arab World

Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
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Israel’s Retaliatory Responses to Houthis Must Begin by Drawing Intelligence Plan

A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)
A person inspects damage at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2024 (EPA)

Israel is considering options to respond to repeated attacks fired from Yemen in the past few days, the latest of which was a Houthi missile strike that injured more than a dozen people in Tel Aviv.
But military experts say Israel should first consider an intelligence plan for confronting the new front after it faced significant difficulties in both defending against and responding to the Houthi attacks.
On Saturday morning, Houthis launched a missile that triggered sirens throughout central Israel at 3:44 am. It was the second attack since Thursday.
Israel's military said the projectile landed in Tel Aviv's southern Jaffa area, adding that attempts to intercept a missile from Yemen failed.
“The incident is still being thoroughly investigated,” the army said, adding that following initial investigations by the Israeli Air Force and Home Front Command, “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, both regarding interception and early warning.”
Israeli military experts say the recent Houthi attacks have revealed serious security gaps in Israel's air defense systems.
“The pressing question now is why none of the other of Israel’s air defense layers managed to intercept the warhead,” wrote Yedioth Ahronoth's Ron Ben-Yishai. “The likely explanation is the late detection and the flat trajectory, which prevented the operation of all available defense apparatus.”
He said these incidents might expose a critical vulnerability in the army’s air defense system protecting Israel’s civilian and military home front.
According to Ben-Yishai, two main reasons might explain Saturday’s interception failure.
The first is that the missile was launched in a “flattened” ballistic trajectory, possibly from an unexpected direction.
As a result, Israeli defenses may not have identified it in time, leading to its late discovery and insufficient time for interceptors to operate.
He said the second, and more likely scenario is that Iran has developed a maneuverable warhead.
Such a warhead separates from the missile during the final third of its trajectory and maneuvers mid-flight—executing pre-programmed course changes—to hit its designated target, he wrote.
And while Israel has launched initial investigations into the failure of Israeli defense systems to intercept the missiles, it is now examining the nature, date and location of its response.
When Houthis launched their first missile attack on Israel last Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned them, saying, “The Houthis will learn the hard way.”
But Israeli political analyst Avi Ashkenazi wrote in the Maariv newspaper that Israel should look at reality with open eyes and say out loud that it cannot deal with the Houthi threat from Yemen, and has failed to face them.
Last Thursday, 14 Israeli Air Force fighter jets, alongside refuelers and spy planes, flew some 2,000 kilometers and dropped over 60 munitions on Houthi “military targets” along Yemen’s western coast and near the capital Sanaa.
The targets included fuel and oil depots, two power stations, and eight tugboats used at the Houthi-controlled ports.
But the Maariv newspaper warned about the increasing involvement of Iran in supporting the Houthi forces.
“Iran has invested more in the Houthis in recent weeks following the collapse of the Shiite axis, making the Houthi movement a leader of this axis,” the newspaper noted.
Underscoring the failures of Israel’s air defense systems, Maariv said the “Arrow” missile defense system, Israel's main line of defense against ballistic missiles, had failed four times in a row to intercept missiles, including three launched from Yemen and one from Lebanon.
Yedioth Ahronoth's Ben-Yishai also warned that the threat posed by maneuvering warheads on Iran's heavy, long-range missiles would become existential for Israel should Iran succeed in developing nuclear warheads for these missiles.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 said that in recent months, the Middle East has changed beyond recognition.
The channel said that for the first time in more than half a century, a direct and threat-free air corridor has been opened to Iran through the Middle East. Israel will benefit from this corridor to launch almost daily attacks on the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, it said.
Channel 12 also reported that according to the Israeli military, the new threat-free corridor will help Israel launch a future attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
“From Israel's perspective, the fall of the Assad regime and the collapse of the Iranian ring of fire are changing the balance of power in the Middle East,” the report added.