A car ramming and stabbing incident in Tel Aviv wounded seven people on Tuesday before a suspect was shot dead, on the second day of Israel’s biggest military operation in years in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian group Hamas praised the “heroic” incident as “an initial response to crimes against our people in the Jenin camp” where Israeli forces had killed 10 people in a “counterterrorism” operation on Monday.
The driver in Tel Aviv was thought to have intentionally hit several pedestrians on a shopping street before getting out of the vehicle to “stab civilians with a sharp object”, police said.
He was shot dead by an armed civilian passerby, said police chief Yaakov Shabtai, claiming that he was a West Bank resident.
The development came as the army pushed on with its operation in the stronghold of Jenin in the northern West Bank that had left 10 Palestinians dead, more than 100 in custody and thousands displaced from their homes.
Explosions were heard from the camp on Tuesday and a drone hovered overhead, an AFP correspondent reported.
The Jenin raid, launched early on Monday under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, employed hundreds of troops as well as drone strikes and army bulldozers that ripped up streets and crushed cars.
“In the last five years, this is the worst raid,” said Qasem Benighader, a nurse at a hospital morgue.
Netanyahu claimed Israeli forces were “destroying command centres and seizing considerable weaponry” in the crowded Jenin camp.
The Palestinian foreign ministry labelled the escalation “open war against the people of Jenin”.
On Tuesday, Jenin’s shops were shuttered amid a general strike and the near-empty streets were littered with debris and burned roadblocks.
The Israeli army claimed it had uncovered militant hideouts, arms depots and an underground shaft used to store explosives.
Israeli forces had “apprehended 120 Palestinian suspects”, the army said, alleging that around “300 armed terrorists were still in Jenin, mostly in hiding”.
The army said it does not intend to stay in the camp but was ready for prolonged fighting.
The northern West Bank has seen a recent spate of attacks as well as Jewish settler violence targeting Palestinians.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict has worsened since early last year and escalated further under the Netanyahu coalition government that includes extreme-right allies.
Around 3,000 people had fled their homes in the refugee camp, said deputy governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Roub, adding they would be housed in schools and other shelters.
The United Nations said the military operation disrupted water and electricity to “large areas” of the refugee camp, a crowded urban area home to some 18,000 people.
Imad Jabarin, one of those leaving the rubble-strewn camp, said, “All aspects of life have been destroyed, there is no electricity and no communications … we are cut off from the world to some extent”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” about the violence and urged respect for international humanitarian law, a spokesman said.
The United States said its ally Israel had a right to “defend its people against” but called for the protection of civilians.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Israeli forces to “demonstrate restraint in its operation and for all parties to avoid further escalation in both the West Bank and Gaza”.
In the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, protesters burned tyres near the border fence with Israel.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967.
Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.
The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want Israel to withdraw from all land it seized in 1967 and to dismantle all Jewish settlements.