Israel said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike in the occupied West Bank on Friday, taking the death toll from a large-scale military operation now in its third day to at least 19.
A top UN aid official meanwhile questioned “what has become of our basic humanity”, as the war raged on in Gaza and humanitarian operations struggle to respond.
The United Nations has warned the military operation which Israel launched in the West Bank early on Wednesday is “fuelling an already explosive situation” in the territory and has pressed Israel to end it.
In the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged she will not change Washington’s policy of supplying weapons to Israel if elected to the top job in November. But she stressed it was time to “end this war”.
They have killed at least 19 Palestinians since Wednesday, the military and the Palestinian health ministry said.
Israeli troops pulled back from other West Bank towns late Thursday but fighting raged on around Jenin, long a hub of militant activity.
Vaccination ‘pauses’
In Gaza, Israeli artillery pounded western areas of Gaza City early Friday, while a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The World Health Organization said Israel had agreed to at least three days of “humanitarian pauses” in parts of Gaza, starting Sunday, to facilitate a vaccination drive after the first case of polio in a quarter of a century was recorded in the territory.
In the West Bank, the army said it killed seven militants on Thursday, including five militants in Tulkarem refugee camp.
A military statement said one of the five was Muhammad Jaber, also known as Abu Shujaa, who Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said was its commander in the nearby Nur Shams refugee camp.
‘Basic sense of humanity’
In Gaza, the Israeli military said Thursday it had “eliminated dozens” of militants in a day of combat and strikes.
Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp killed two people on Friday, the civil defence agency in the territory said.
The UN had to halt the movement of aid and aid workers within Gaza on Monday due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir el-Balah area, which had become a hub for its workers.
The war has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
In central Gaza, some Palestinians returned to parts of Deir el-Balah after the military had amended a previous evacuation order.
Ronaldo Schemidt with AFP
