An Israeli drone strike killed three Palestinians in Jenin, a city in the northern occupied West Bank, on Friday in the first Israeli airstrike in the territory in more than six months. The Israeli military described those killed as "terrorists" and said the operation targeted a Hamas cell, while Palestinian armed groups offered a competing account of the dead men's affiliations.
The Israeli military identified one of those killed as Qais Bitawi, whom it described as a Hamas operative responsible for militant activity in the Jenin refugee camp — a network it said had been dismantled during Operation Iron Wall, a large-scale military campaign launched in early 2025 targeting refugee camps across the northern West Bank. The military said Bitawi had been involved in "directing, funding and executing attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces" and had maintained ties with Hamas in Gaza and abroad. Two of his alleged accomplices were also killed, and the military said weapons were found in their vehicle. However, the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, issued a statement claiming all three men as its own fighters and described Bitawi as "one of the most prominent leaders" of the group in the West Bank. Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, also mourned Bitawi as one of its commanders.
The strike targeted a house under construction in the Harsh al-Saada area west of Jenin. Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reported that Israeli military vehicles subsequently entered the site. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli soldiers detained its medical crews when they arrived at the scene, confiscated their equipment, and ordered them to leave without evacuating any casualties — an account that raised immediate concern among humanitarian observers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz both congratulated the military on the operation. "We do not wait for terror — we pursue it, conquer its strongholds and thwart its people," Katz wrote on social media. Hamas condemned what it called a "massacre perpetrated by the occupation forces" and warned the attack "will be met only with further anger and confrontation."
The strike underscores the deepening volatility in the occupied West Bank, which Israel has controlled since 1967. Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority was granted limited self-governance over parts of the territory. Since the Hamas attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023, at least 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to figures compiled from Palestinian Authority data, while official Israeli data records at least 48 Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks or during military operations in the same period. Operation Iron Wall alone displaced nearly 40,000 people from northern West Bank refugee camps, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which has also faced Israeli restrictions on its operations.