TULKAREM, West Bank (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on a West Bank cafe that the military said targeted Palestinian militants also killed a family of four, including two young children, relatives told The Associated Press on Friday.
The strike slammed into a three-story building in the Tulkarem refugee camp late Thursday, setting it on fire, destroying a popular cafe and killing at least 18 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It was the deadliest strike in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war nearly a year ago.
On Friday, paramedics searched the rubble inside the blasted-out coffee shop, gathering human remains into small boxes. Young boys and men walked among the ruins of the shop, with holes in the ceiling and debris blanketing the ground, digging past bloodstained furniture and dislodged iron beams for anything to salvage.
Among the dead was the Abu Zahra family: Muhammad, a bakery worker; his wife, Saja; and their two children, Sham, 8, and Karam, 6, according to the man’s brother, Mustafa Abu Zahra, who said the family lived above the coffee shop. He added that one of Muhammad’s brothers-in-law was also in the apartment at the time and was killed.
The Israeli military said the strike killed at least nine militants who were gathering to plan an attack against Israel, including Hamas’ leader in the camp, whom it accused without providing evidence of taking part in multiple attacks against Israeli civilians. It also said a “key operative” of Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, was killed in the strike. Tulkarem, known to be a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, is a frequent target of Israeli military raids.