Israeli Strike Kills at Least 10 People in the West Bank

FILED - 24 January 2025, Palestinian Territories, Jenin: Smoke billows from buildings during the Israeli army operations in Jenin. Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa
FILED - 24 January 2025, Palestinian Territories, Jenin: Smoke billows from buildings during the Israeli army operations in Jenin. Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa
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Israeli Strike Kills at Least 10 People in the West Bank

FILED - 24 January 2025, Palestinian Territories, Jenin: Smoke billows from buildings during the Israeli army operations in Jenin. Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa
FILED - 24 January 2025, Palestinian Territories, Jenin: Smoke billows from buildings during the Israeli army operations in Jenin. Photo: Ayman Nobani/dpa

Palestinian health authorities said an Israeli airstrike in the northern West Bank killed at least 10 people late Wednesday.

The Israeli military said the strike by a warplane targeted a Palestinian militant cell in the area based on intelligence.

Israel’s use of a jet fighter to strike the rural village of Tamoun late Wednesday marked the latest escalation in its intensifying crackdown on Palestinian militants in the occupied territory.

Residents of Tamoun said that the airstrike hit a house in a crowded neighborhood. The Palestinian Health Ministry cautioned that the death toll was likely to rise.

Before the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank were relatively rare. Israel says its increased military raids are aimed at combating rising Palestinian militant attacks against Israelis, including shootings.

Palestinians say the extensive military operations — such as the ongoing raid in the Jenin refugee camp that has so far killed at least 18 Palestinians — only deepen resentment for Israel and prolong the cycle of bloodshed.

In a statement, Hamas mourned the men killed in Tamoun but did not claim them as members. It called on Palestinians across Israel and the occupied West Bank to mobilize against Israel in hopes of making it “pay the price for its crimes.”



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.