2 more Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in West Bank

Two Palestinians were killed on Tuesday by Israeli army fire near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, local media said.

The pair lost their lives in Dannabeh neighborhood in the city and their bodies were withheld by Israeli forces, the official news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli forces raided the area and slapped a siege around a house there, asking its occupants through loudspeakers to surrender, witnesses said, adding that rocket-propelled grenades were fired by Israeli forces towards the house.

A Palestinian girl was earlier killed by Israeli army fire in the town of Kafr Dan near Jenin in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli army launched a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the largest in two decades, killing at least 33 people and causing massive destruction in the area.

The offensive came amid rising tensions in the occupied territory as Israel pressed ahead with its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.

At least 685 people have since been killed and over 5,700 others injured by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to the Health Ministry.

The escalation followed a landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice on July 19 that declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.