Jenin airstrike targeted militants, Israel says

The Israeli military said Friday it carried out an airstrike in the Jenin area of the northern occupied West Bank against several people it described as terrorists.

“A short while ago, the IDF conducted a precise strike against several terrorists in the Jenin area. Details to follow,” the military said in a brief statement.

No casualty figure or further details were provided in the statement.

The strike was described as rare in the West Bank, a partly semi-autonomous Palestinian territory that has seen rising tension. The West Bank is home to the Palestinian Authority and has mostly avoided the Israeli military airstrikes that have devastated the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.

In early 2025, the Israeli military launched a wide-ranging operation targeting refugee camps in the northern West Bank. It said the operation was aimed at cracking down on Palestinian armed groups. In February 2025, the military deployed tanks in Jenin, which is known as a centre of Palestinian militancy.

The operation has displaced nearly 40,000 people from the camps, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, at least 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank, including several armed fighters, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Authority data. Official Israeli data shows at least 48 Israelis, civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. The Oslo Accords in the 1990s granted limited self-rule to the Palestinian Authority, whose ruling Fatah movement is a rival to Hamas.