Israel announced that it had successfully targeted and killed two senior Hamas militants in an airstrike on their car in Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli Security Agency and the Israel Defense Forces identified the militants as Ahmed Abu Ara and Rafet Dawasi from the northern district of the West Bank.
Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades military wing confirmed the deaths of the two fighters in the Israeli air strike and expressed mourning. According to the Israeli statement, the militants were involved in planning a shooting attack that resulted in the death of an Israeli man in the Jordan Valley.
Following the shooting attack, where one Israeli was killed and another wounded, the al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for killing an Israeli soldier near the settlement of Mehola in the Jordan Valley.
The escalation of violence in the West Bank coincides with ongoing talks in Doha aimed at resolving the conflict in Gaza. The situation poses a risk of an expanding regional conflict involving Iran and its proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.