At least 39 people killed in Israeli attacks in northern Gaza, officials say

Nineteen bodies were recovered on Saturday from a building in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza that was hit by an Israeli attack, the Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency relief organization active in Gaza, said.

The Associated Press could not confirm the figures provided by the emergency group.

As deadly attacks rocked northern Gaza, an Israeli was shot dead in a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning, the Israeli army said.

The army said the Israeli man was declared dead after a shootout in the town of Qalqilya and that Israeli troops were deployed in the area. In the same West Bank town, Israeli forces shot dead two militants on Friday.

Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out last October. Since then, at least 549 Palestinians in the area have been killed by Israeli gunfire, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. During the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, the civilian emergency aid group in the Gaza Strip said its rescue workers were also digging for survivors at the site of another attack in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City.

The Israeli army said its fighter jets had attacked two Hamas military bases in the Gaza City area, but did not elaborate.

Another Israeli attack in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Saturday killed a member of the military wing of the Islamic Group, a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, the group said. The member was the seventh to be killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.

The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, when Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage. Israel responded by bombing and invading the enclave, killing over 37,400 Palestinians there, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.

Israeli citizens are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

In April, the death of a 14-year-old Israeli settler sparked a series of settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the territory. The army said the boy was killed and later arrested a Palestinian in connection with the killing.

In 2014, tensions escalated following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, eventually leading to a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the bloodiest wave of fighting between the two sides to date.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority’s influence in the northern West Bank has declined as militant groups there have become increasingly powerful.

Also on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy had died of his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah last week. The Israeli army commented on the shooting, saying its forces stormed the al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah last Friday to arrest a suspect and then opened fire on a group of Palestinians who threw stones at them.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians want these territories as part of their hoped-for independent state.

Jeffery writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.