RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- At least three Palestinians were killed Friday in an Israeli airstrike targeting the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, Palestinian sources said.
Local Palestinian sources told Xinhua an Israeli warplane struck a house in the Harsh al-Saada area of the city, killing three Palestinians.
Israeli forces were deployed in the city following the strike, the sources said.
In a press statement, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medical teams reached the targeted house before Israeli forces arrived but were later detained at the site.
The forces released the medical teams after confiscating their medical equipment and ordered them to leave the area without allowing them to retrieve any injured people or bodies, the society said.
Meanwhile, in a joint statement, the Israeli military and the Shin Bet domestic security agency said they conducted the strike, identifying one of those killed as al-Baitawi, whom they described as a "Hamas operative" in Jenin.
He was killed "in an Israeli Air Force airstrike alongside two additional accomplices and weapons were found in their vehicle," the statement read.
Following the attack, Hamas condemned it as a "massacre" in a statement, urging Palestinians in the West Bank to "escalate forms of resistance."
The airstrike comes amid heightened violence in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have intensified raids and Palestinians have faced increased settler attacks and land seizures. ■
