Israeli forces have killed nine Palestinians, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, in the deadliest single incident in the occupied West Bank in two decades, Palestinian officials say.
The raid prompted Palestinian leaders to cut security ties with Israel, a move that could lead to more violence.
The Israeli military also fatally shot a 22-year-old Palestinian later in a separate incident.
The raid in the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday increases the risk of a major flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian fighting, poses a test for Israel’s new hardline government and casts a shadow on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected trip to the region next week.
Raising the stakes, the Palestinian Authority said it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants.
The PA already has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds such as the Jenin camp, but the announcement could pave the way for Israel to step up operations it says are needed to prevent attacks.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, threatened revenge for the raid. Violent escalations in the West Bank have previously triggered retaliatory rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces in the West Bank and on the Gaza frontier went on heightened alert. Palestinians filled the streets, chanting in solidarity with Jenin, and President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning.
In the refugee camp, residents dug a mass grave for the dead.
PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Abbas had decided to cut security co-ordination in “light of the repeated aggression against our people, and the undermining of signed agreements”, referring to commitments from the Oslo peace process in the 1990s.
He also said the Palestinians planned to file complaints with the UN Security Council, International Criminal Court and other international bodies.
The PA last cut security co-ordination with Israel in 2020 over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s drive to annex the occupied West Bank.
But six months later, the PA resumed co-operation, signalling the financial importance of the relationship and the Palestinians’ relief at the election of President Joe Biden.
Barbara Leaf, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, said the administration was deeply concerned about the situation and that civilian casualties reported in Jenin were “quite regrettable”.
But she also said the Palestinian announcement to suspend security ties was a mistake.
“We want to see them move back in the other direction,” she said, adding: “They need to engage with each other.”
There have been no serious peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in well over a decade.
Thursday’s gunbattle that left nine dead and 20 wounded erupted when Israel’s military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp that it said was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis.
The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids.
Hamas’ armed wing claimed four of the dead as members, while Islamic Jihad said three others belonged to the group.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade also claimed one of the dead, and the Palestinian health ministry identified the 61-year-old woman killed as Magda Obaid.
Israeli forces later fatally shot a 22-year-old and wounded two others, the Palestinian health ministry said, as Palestinians confronted Israeli troops north of Jerusalem to protest Thursday’s raid.
Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.
Israel’s new national security minister, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot Palestinians, posted a video of himself beaming triumphantly and congratulating security forces.
UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was “deeply alarmed and saddened” by the violence.
