Israeli forces killed six Palestinians on Tuesday 11 May during a raid in an occupied West Bank village near Jenin.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that Israeli troops entered the village of Kafr Dan and fatally shot six young men, aged 21 to 32 — another was injured.
The Ministry identified the slain men as Saqr Aref Abed (28), Ahmad Mohammad Samoudi (24), Ayman Abdul-Karim Fadaleh (24), Mohammad Hazza Meri (32), Mustafa Allam Meri (21), and Ahmad Mohammad Abu Obeid (21).
Ahmad Samoudi was the brother of Mahmoud Khalil Samoudi, a twelve-year-old child who was shot by Israeli forces in Jenin and succumbed to his wounds two weeks later in 2022.
An unverified video on social media appeared to show Samoudi lying wounded and unarmed in the street before he was hit in the thigh by gunfire.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society confirmed medics evacuated the body of one man killed and treated another for a critical head injury sustained from a live round.
Citing local sources, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances from arriving at the scene and opened fire at them.
The Israeli Defence Force said it had carried out a “counterterrorism” operation in Kafr Dan and claimed four of the men killed were armed militants.
Earlier on Tuesday, the al-Quds Brigades’ Jenin battalion said it was engaged in a “fierce” skirmish with Israeli forces in Kafr Dan.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began last October — Israeli forces killed four Palestinians outside Ramallah on Monday and three others in the Jenin refugee camp on Friday.
Palestinian National Council member Rawhi Fattouh said the Israeli raids on the West Bank was “a continuation of the massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocide targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza”.
“This racist government is looking through all means to detonate the situation in the West Bank… and to turn the conflict into a religious, ideological fight that would bring the region into a furnace of violence, killing and massacres,” said Fattouh.
Israel has killed 544 Palestinians — including 133 children — in the West Bank since the outbreak of the war, according to Palestinian health authorities.