Israel army says signs increasing that Hamas chief Deif killed

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed two people in separate overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, including one in Jenin, where the Israeli military is conducting a major offensive.
The Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement that a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Abu Al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli air strike.”
The military told AFP that an Israeli aircraft conducted a strike in Jenin on Tuesday night “after a terrorist threw an explosive device” toward troops.
The Israeli military has launched an intense assault on the Jenin area, now in its eighth day, to root out Palestinian militant groups.
On Monday it said it had “eliminated over 15 terrorists” and arrested 40 wanted people during the offensive.
Abu Al-Hija is the 16th person killed during the raid, which has caused many residents of Jenin refugee camp, the focus of the operation, to flee.
During a visit in the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the operation — dubbed Iron Wall — was aimed at defeating “terror infrastructure” built “with funding and armament from Iran.”
“The Jenin refugee camp will not return to what it was — after the completion of the operation, the (Israeli army) will remain in the camp to ensure that terror does not return,” Katz added.
Katz’s office told AFP that Israeli forces would not remain in the area “forever” after the operation’s end.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the health ministry also said a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces.
The army told AFP it was looking into the details of both deaths.
Tulkarem, Jenin and their refugee camps are known as bastions of Palestinian militant groups, whose factions present themselves as a more effective alternative to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in the fight against Israel.
Before the current Israeli operation, Jenin’s refugee camp was the site of a long operation by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces attempting to root out Palestinian militants affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.
Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 863 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 29 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities on Wednesday urged Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory it occupied in the Golan Heights after president Bashar Assad’s ousting, during talks with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, state media reported.
During Lacroix’s meeting with Syria’s foreign and defense ministers, “it was confirmed that Syria is ready to fully cooperate with the UN,” the SANA news agency said.
Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement establishing a buffer zone “provided Israeli forces withdraw immediately,” SANA added.
Israel sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone on December 8, the day Assad was toppled.
Israel seized most of the mountainous plateau from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it in 1981. The UN-patrolled buffer zone was intended to keep Israeli and Syrian forces apart.
Forces loyal to Assad’s government had abandoned their positions in southern Syria before rebel groups even reached Damascus, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say there was a “vacuum on Israel’s border.”
The United Nations considers Israel’s takeover of the buffer zone a violation of the 1974 disengagement accord.
During his visit, Lacroix was to meet peacekeepers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors compliance with the deal.
In December, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to “prepare to remain” in the buffer zone throughout winter.
On Tuesday, he said troops would remain “at the top of Mount Hermon and in the security zone indefinitely to protect Golan communities, the north and all Israeli citizens.”
Mount Hermon straddles Syria and Lebanon, overlooking the Golan Heights.
“We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria,” he said.