Israeli helicopters open fire on parts of Tubas, Qabatiya in northern West Bank

RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL

Israeli attack helicopters opened fire late Tuesday with machine guns on areas in the city of Tubas and town of Qabatiya in the northern occupied West Bank.

Local sources told Anadolu that the US-made Apache helicopters fire rounds over Tubas, with gunfire heard several times during the evening.

No information was available about the targeted locations and no injuries have been reported so far, according to the sources.

In Qabatiya, located south of Jenin, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted local sources as saying that Apache helicopters fired heavy live ammunition in the Al-Zakarneh Mountain area.

Wafa noted that the area where the gunfire was directed is open and uninhabited.

Tubas governorate has witnessed over a week of military escalation that has caused extensive destruction to infrastructure and property, in addition to hundreds of injuries to Palestinians and dozens of arrests.

The Israeli army also announced Tuesday afternoon that it had imposed a full curfew on Qabatiya until further notice, according to a statement issued by the local municipality.

This comes amid a wide Israeli military escalation across the occupied West Bank in recent days that has included raids, home demolitions and city closures.

On Tuesday, the escalation extended to the governorates of Hebron in the south, Ramallah in the center and Nablus and Tubas in the north, where the army enforced heavy restrictions on Palestinians’ daily movement, closed main roads and raided homes, disrupting public services and schools.

More than 1,085 Palestinians have since been killed and 10,700 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.

Over 20,500 people have also been arrested.

In a landmark opinion in July last year, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.