Israel occupation forces demolished sections of a family home in the city of Qalqilya early this morning, Wafa news agency has reported. The two-storey building was home to Ali Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian killed in an Israeli air strike last year.
The house was targeted after Israeli occupation forces raided Qalqilya from the east, accompanied by explosives experts. They deployed in the Sufin area along Street 22, surrounded the Islamic College near Khalil’s family home, and used heavy machinery to dig near the structure before rigging it with explosives.
Local sources stated that Palestinian residents were forced to evacuate their homes before the detonation took place.
Ali Khalil was killed in August last year when an Israeli air strike hit a vehicle on the Zeita-Atil road north of Tulkarm. The strike set the vehicle ablaze, killing Khalil and another Palestinian, Abu Haniya, also from Qalqilya.
Today’s raid came as the Israeli army has continued a deadly military offensive in the northern West Bank since 21 January, killing at least 65 Palestinians and displacing tens of thousands.
In related incidents, Israeli forces and bulldozers stormed the towns of Qabatia and Arraba in southern Jenin, destroying multiple facilities, said witnesses. Several Palestinians were detained for field interrogations, while a number of homes were converted into military outposts, they added.
Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank, where at least 931 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught on the Gaza Strip on 7 October, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal. The ICJ also called for the evacuation of all settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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