At least six Palestinians have been killed and more than a dozen others wounded during a raid by Israeli forces on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry, in a brief statement on Tuesday, identified one of the victims as 26-year-old Mohammad Wael Ghazawi, saying that the young Palestinian man "was killed by occupation (Israeli) bullets to the chest in Jenin."
Other victims were identified as Majd Mohammad Huseinieh, 26, Tareq Ziad Natour, 27, Ziad Amin Zareini, 29, Abdul Fattah Hussein Khrousheh, 49, and Mutasem Nasser Sabbagh, 22.
It added that at least 16 more Palestinians had been wounded in the brutal raid, which involved, according to reports, dozens of armored vehicles, military helicopters, snipers, drones, and bulldozers.
The ministry further said that two of the injured were in critical condition. One of them was shot in the chest and the other in the pelvis.
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas issued a statement later in the day, expressing condolences to the families of Palestinians killed in the Israeli raid.
Hamas said the Israeli crimes and massacres will not intimidate Palestinians but will make them more determined to confront the Israeli forces and settlers.
The official Palestinian Wafa news agency said the Israeli army forces had fired a missile at one of the houses in the camp.
Smoke could be seen billowing from the house, witnesses told the Anadolu news agency.
A report by Palestine TV also said that Israeli special units hid in civilian cars to storm the camp and besiege the house. "Military vehicles accompanied by a bulldozer followed the civilian car to besiege the camp," it added.
Meanwhile, the Israel army said in a brief statement that its "forces are currently operating in the Jenin (refugee) camp" in the northern West Bank, adding that they were attacking the camp to arrest the Palestinian who allegedly killed two Israeli settlers "in the shooting attack in Huwara," which is a Palestinian town located in Nablus Province in the West Bank.
Back on February 26, two Israeli settlers Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, from the Har Bracha settlement, were shot dead, with the Israeli authorities alleging later that Ghazawi had purportedly opened fire from close range at their car before fleeing the scene, apparently on foot.
The Israeli regime has intensified its crackdown on Nablus and the nearby city of Jenin since late December last year when Benjamin Netanyahu once again became the regime's prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
In late January, Israeli forces shot and killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded over a dozen others during a violent raid on the refugee camp.
Sixty-one Palestinians, including civilians, have been killed in 2023, the Palestinian Health Ministry said last month.