A funeral has been held for a 16-year-old Palestinian girl reportedly killed by Israeli forces in the north of the occupied West Bank on the seventh day of a wide-scale Israeli operation.
Lujain Musleh’s father said she was shot in the head as she looked out of a window of her home in Kafr Dan, just outside Jenin, after soldiers surrounded a neighbouring house on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said armed fighters fired at the soldiers and that they “fired back at a suspect who observed” them.
The Palestinian health ministry says 30 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched what it called an operation to dismantle “terrorist cells”.
Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as members, but several children are also among them, according to the ministry.
The Israeli military has said that one Israeli soldier has been killed.
There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Defence for Children Palestine (DCIP), a rights group, said Israeli soldiers entered Kafr Dan around 11:30 (09:30 BST) on Tuesday, prompting clashes with armed Palestinians.
DCIP also cited documentation it had collected which said a 14-year-old boy, Mohammed Kanaan, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper on Tuesday morning at an entrance to the Tulkarm refugee camp, in Tulkarm city. The IDF said it was looking into that report.
The IDF said its soldiers had killed two armed fighters during an exchange of fire in Tulkarm on Tuesday, and also located what an explosive device in a baby stroller.
On Monday evening, it announced that 14 “terrorists” had been killed in Jenin since the start of the operation and that 25 suspects had been detained.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Tuesday that the losses caused by the raids, especially of infrastructure, might be the most extensive in two decades.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees expressed particular concern about Jenin, saying it had been “ravaged by violence and destruction”.
Jenin’s streets have been so damaged that cars cannot pass some roads. Israeli bulldozers have destroyed many shops in the city centre, although those on the periphery were still open.
The local municipality said the IDF had bulldozed more than 70% of streets, cut off water to 80% of the city, and damaged 20km (12 miles) of water, sewage, communications and electricity networks.
It also said it would work quickly to enable local authorities to repair damaged infrastructure and ensure the functionality of essential services.
