Early on Friday, Israeli security forces ended a two-day raid in Tulkarem, a West Bank city straddling the wall separating Palestinian communities and Israel that hasn’t been known as a hotbed of militancy in recent years, leaving at least eight Palestinians dead.
Since Israel launched its response to the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, 357 Palestinians, of whom 90 were children, have been killed across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations. Five Israelis, including four members of the security forces, have been killed in the West Bank over the same period, the U.N. said.
“Civilians are being killed in these raids, which seems to be inviting more people to join militant groups rather than the opposite,” said Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a Ramallah-based think tank.
Israel says it has detained about 2,700 people throughout the West Bank since the start of the war, including over 1,300 who it says are linked to Hamas. The Palestinian Prisoners Society, a nongovernmental organization that supports detainees in Israeli prisons, says the number of Palestinians who have been detained by Israel since Oct. 7 is around 6,000.
While a majority of Palestinians don’t support Hamas, polling shows that the Oct. 7 attack and the Israeli war in Gaza have increased the group’s popularity, particularly in the West Bank where 75% prefer the group to remain in power in Gaza. By comparison, 36% of Gazans said they preferred Hamas to stay in power, according to a poll released by the PCPSR in December.
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