Humanitarian aid trucks enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. Humanitarian aid trucks enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, days after the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect. FILE – Israeli soldiers take up positions next to the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, in the Gaza Strip, Sept. 13, 2024.
The Israeli military said Thursday that the two men barricaded themselves in a structure in the West Bank village of Burqin and exchanged fire with Israeli troops before they were killed overnight. The army said a soldier was moderately wounded.
The Hamas militant group released a statement claiming the two men were members of its armed wing and praising the bus attack. Hamas and the smaller and more radical Islamic Jihad are allies that sometimes carry out attacks together.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Al Jazeera says the Palestinian Authority arrested one of its reporters
The Al Jazeera news network says the Palestinian Authority arrested one of its reporters after preventing him from covering an Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank.
It said Palestinian security forces had earlier prevented him from reporting on a large Israeli military operation in Jenin, an epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. The Palestinian Authority launched its own crackdown on militants in the city late last year.
Both Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority banned Al Jazeera last year. Israel accuses it of being a mouthpiece of Hamas over its coverage of the war in the Gaza Strip and says some of its reporters are also militants.
The pan-Arab broadcaster has rejected the allegations and accused both Israel and the Palestinian Authority of trying to silence critical coverage.
The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security matters. It is unpopular among Palestinians, with critics portraying it as a corrupt and authoritarian ally of Israel.
Israel’s Netanyahu will probably visit Trump in the next few weeks, official says…Read more by By The Associated Press
