Israel said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike in the occupied West Bank on Friday, taking the death toll from a large-scale military operation now in its third day to at least 19.

A top UN aid official meanwhile questioned "what has become of our basic humanity", as the war raged on in Gaza where humanitarian operations struggled to respond.

In the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged she will not change Washington's policy of supplying weapons to Israel if elected to the top job in November. But she stressed it was time to "end this war" in Gaza.

Israel has described its raids on towns and refugee camps across the northern West Bank as "counter-terrorism" operations.

They have killed at least 19 Palestinians since Wednesday, the military and the Palestinian health ministry said.

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of those killed were their fighters.

The military said it killed three Hamas militants in an air strike near the northern city of Jenin on Friday.

Witnesses told AFP the strike hit a car in the town of Zababdeh, southeast of the city.

Israeli troops pulled back from other West Bank towns late Thursday but fighting raged on around Jenin, long a hub of militant activity.

An AFP journalist reported loud explosions from the city's refugee camp and thick plumes of smoke rising from the area.

– Vaccination 'pauses' –

In Gaza, Israeli artillery pounded western areas of Gaza City early Friday, an AFP journalist said, while a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

The World Health Organization said Israel had agreed to at least three days of "humanitarian pauses" in parts of Gaza, starting Sunday, to facilitate a vaccination drive after the territory recorded its first case of polio in a quarter of a century.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the measures were "not a ceasefire" in the nearly 11-month war.

The Israeli assault on the West Bank has caused significant destruction, especially in Tulkarem, whose governor Mustafa Taqatqa described the raids as "unprecedented" and a "dangerous signal".

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said at least 45 people had been detained in the West Bank since Wednesday. An Israeli military spokesman said "10 wanted individuals were arrested".

Britain on Friday said it was "deeply" concerned by the raids, urging Israel to "exercise restraint" and adhere to international law.

France said the Israeli operations "worsen a climate of unprecedented instability and violence", while Spain denounced "an outbreak of violence which is clearly unacceptable".

Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

– 'Basic sense of humanity' –

Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on Friday, the civil defence agency in the Hamas-ruled territory said.

The acting head of the UN humanitarian office, Joyce Msuya, said "more than 88 percent of Gaza's territory has come under an (Israeli) order to evacuate at some point", adding civilians were being forced into just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.

"It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?"

Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinians militants also seized 251 hostages, 103 of whom are still captive in Gaza including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,602 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The war has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

The military on Friday said it had wrapped up a month-long operation in southern and central Gaza that it said killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters.

Some Palestinians returned to find massive destruction in parts of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

In Khan Yunis, Amal al-Astal, 48, said: "We found our house destroyed and our neighbours' (houses) destroyed as well. One of our neighbours' corpses was decomposed there."

Mohamed Abu Thuria told AFP he had "found massive destruction everywhere" on returning to Deir el-Balah.

The Gaza war has drawn in Iran-backed fighters from across the region, including Lebanon and Yemen, sparking fears that it could spread into a wider conflagration.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Friday warned that "there is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level".

UK voices concerns at Israel's 'methods' in West Bank raid
London (AFP) Aug 30, 2024 –

The UK on Friday said it was "deeply" concerned by the Israeli military's ongoing operation in the occupied West Bank, urging it to "exercise restraint" and adhere to international law.

Israel's large-scale military operation in the occupied territory entered its third day Friday, with the death toll rising to at least 19.

Israel has described its raids on towns and refugee camps across the northern West Bank as "counter-terrorism" operations.

"We recognise Israel's need to defend itself against security threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure," a spokesperson for the UK foreign ministry said.

The spokesperson added in a statement that the risk of regional instability was serious while "the need for de-escalation urgent".

The statement called on Israeli authorities to "exercise restraint, adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who seek to inflame tensions".

Britain also criticised comments made earlier this week by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a settler and proponent of West Bank annexation.

The senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government said he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

"The UK strongly condemns settler violence and inciteful remarks such as those made by Israel's National Security Minister Ben Gvir, which threaten the status-quo of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem," the spokesperson said.

"It is in no one's interest for further conflict and instability to spread in the West Bank."

Britain's centre-left Labour government has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and for the speeding up of aid deliveries into there, since taking power early last month.

It has followed the same approach to the conflict as the previous Conservative government, with foreign minister David Lammy and other ministers at pains to demand Hamas release the hostages seized in its October 7 attacks as part of any ceasefire.

Some commentators have suggested however that the new government led by Keir Starmer — a former human rights lawyer — may take a tougher long-term stance towards Israel and how it conducts its military operations.

Labour says it is committed to recognising a Palestinian state "as a contribution to a renewed peace process" which results in a two-state solution.