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Israeli Forces Kill One Palestinian in West Bank Refugee Camp

Mourners carry bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral in Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank December 20,2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Mourners carry bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral in Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank December 20,2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
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Israeli Forces Kill One Palestinian in West Bank Refugee Camp

Mourners carry bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral in Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank December 20,2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Mourners carry bodies of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, during their funeral in Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank December 20,2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on Tuesday on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.
The Israeli military said the man was killed in a "counter-terrorism" operation that resulted in 18 arrests, while the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel triggered the current war in Gaza and a wider conflict on several fronts.
WAFA said Israeli bulldozers demolished infrastructure in the camp, including homes, shops, part of the walls of Al-Salam mosque, which they barricaded off, and part of the camp's water network.

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Israeli Security Minister Enters Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound ‘In Prayer’ for Gaza Hostages

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem's Old City, December 26, 2024. (Itamar Ben-Gvir's spokesperson/Handout via Reuters)
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem's Old City, December 26, 2024. (Itamar Ben-Gvir's spokesperson/Handout via Reuters)
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Israeli Security Minister Enters Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound ‘In Prayer’ for Gaza Hostages

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem's Old City, December 26, 2024. (Itamar Ben-Gvir's spokesperson/Handout via Reuters)
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem's Old City, December 26, 2024. (Itamar Ben-Gvir's spokesperson/Handout via Reuters)

Israel's ultranationalist security minister ascended to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Thursday for what he said was a "prayer" for hostages in Gaza, freshly challenging rules over one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East.

Israel's official position accepts decades-old rules restricting non-Muslim prayer at the compound, Islam's third holiest site and known as Temple Mount to Jews, who revere it as the site of two ancient temples.

Under a delicate decades-old "status quo" arrangement with Muslim authorities, the Al-Aqsa compound is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and, under rules dating back decades, Jews can visit but may not pray there.

In a post on X, hardline Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: "I ascended today to our holy place, in prayer for the welfare of our soldiers, to swiftly return all the hostages and total victory with God's help."

The post included a picture of Ben-Gvir walking in the compound, situated on an elevated plaza in Jerusalem's walled Old City, but no images or video of him praying.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office immediately released a statement restating the official Israeli position.

Palestinian group Hamas took about 250 hostages in its Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli tallies. In the ensuing war in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed over 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave.

Suggestions from Israeli ultranationalists that Israel would alter rules about religious observance at the Al-Aqsa compound have sparked violence with Palestinians in the past.

In August, Ben-Gvir repeated a call for Jews to be allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, drawing sharp criticism, and he has visited the mosque compound in the past.

Ben-Gvir, head of one of two religious-nationalist parties in Netanyahu's coalition, has a long record of making inflammatory statements appreciated by his own supporters, but conflicting with the government's official line.

Israeli police in the past have prevented ministers from ascending to the compound on the grounds that it endangers national security. Ben-Gvir's ministerial file gives him oversight over Israel's national police force.