Deadly West Bank airstrike — Israel's first in nine months

Israel launches deadly West Bank airstrike — its first in nine months

In what was the first airstrike by the Israeli regime in the occupied West Bank in nine months, three Palestinians were killed Tuesday morning, October 28.

‘Israel’s’ security forces used a combination of bullets and bombardment to carry out the killings, which took place in the village of Kafr Qud, west of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Afterward, they sent in military reinforcements and surrounded nearby farmland. Israeli media reported that snipers killed two men in a cave, while another man was killed when an airstrike hit a vehicle. The resulting explosion set fire to surrounding farmland and olive trees.

Israel’s first West Bank airstrike in nine months

The IOF, which took away the bodies of the martyred Palestinians, said it had targeted “a terrorist cell that had planned an attack and was linked to a terrorist network based in the Jenin refugee camp.”

The victims, all in their 20s, were named as Abdullah Mohammed Omar Jalamneh, Qais Ibrahim Mohammed Albaytawi, and Ahmed Azmi Aref Nasharti.

Defence Minister Israel Katz praised the targeted killings, warning that “any attempt by terrorist organisations to rebuild their infrastructure in Judea and Samaria will be crushed with an iron fist.”

In a statement, Hamas said:

This crime represents the bloody policy of occupation and its dangerous escalation in the West Bank — a desperate attempt to subjugate our people and break their will, which will never be achieved no matter the brutality of the occupation.

Since January 2025, there has been a major military offensive against Palestinian refugee camps in both Jenin and Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, forcibly displacing 40,000 Palestinians from their homes. Moreover, these raids are part of wider IOF operations in the occupied West Bank, which have escalated dramatically since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza and serve as collective punishment of the Palestinian population. Violent settler attacks have also intensified to unprecedented levels since October 2023.