Death toll from Israeli assault on Jenin climbs to 12

The death toll from an Israeli assault on the city of Jenin in the northern part of the occupied West Bank has climbed to 12.

The Palestinian health ministry in the city of Ramallah reported the fatalities on Wednesday, the second day of the raid.

The latest victim, 30-year-old Mustafa Ibrahim Musa Jabarin, died at al-Razi Hospital in Jenin a short while ago, the facility’s director told the official Palestinian Wafa news agency on Thursday.

Wafa cited Fawaz Hammad, director of al-Razi Hospital, as identifying one of the victims as 18-year-old Sami Amin Ahmad al-Qaisi.

“Meanwhile, 16-year-old Mahmoud Fares Qreini also succumbed to his wounds sustained from Israeli army gunfire,” it reported, citing the health ministry.

Four children as well as surgeon Usaeed Jabareen, from the government hospital, were among the victims of the raid that also wounded 25 others, the ministry added.

“The occupation forces continued the deliberate destruction of infrastructure and property, including streets, vegetable stalls, commercial shacks, and vehicles, as they occupied scores of houses and turned them into outposts amid violent confrontations,” Wafa said of the assault.

The agency also said Israeli snipers had deployed on the rooftops of houses in the city and begun opening fire at Palestinians, ambulances, medics, and media workers.

The office of the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the raid, saying in a statement that the Israeli regime was “killing innocent people, doctors, and destroying the infrastructure of Palestinian hospitals, cities, and villages.”

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called the raid a “massacre” and deemed it “conclusive evidence of the criminal mentality that rules the occupying regime and its ideological belief in killing our people.”

The Israeli regime has markedly stepped up its aggression across the West Bank since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

At least 517 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied territory by Israeli troops or illegal settlers since the onset of the war on Gaza, according to Palestinian officials.