UN slams Israel's 'unlawful air strike' on W Bank camp which killed 18

The UN on Friday condemned what it called an "unlawful air strike" by Israel on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian health ministry said killed 18 people the previous day. It was described as the deadliest air strike in over two decades in the West Bank.

The UN Human Rights Office slammed the strike, calling it "unlawful".

"The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF (Israeli security forces) during military-like operations in the West Bank that have caused widespread harm to Palestinians," the UN rights office said in a statement.

"The levelling of an entire building filled with people via aerial bombing shows flagrant disregard for Israel's obligations." On Friday, hundreds gathered for a public funeral in Tulkarem, where the bodies of the dead were carried through the streets as people waved flags and fired guns into the air.

Several armed fighters, masked and dressed in black, attended the funeral, an AFP journalist reported.

"We hope that all Palestinian people will join hands, as we have one cause," Nasser Kharyoush, a father of one of the victims of the raid, told AFP.

Tulkarem was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation in late August against fighters based in the West Bank.

Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the Israeli war in Gaza which began on October 7. Since then, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 701 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The UN rights office said Thursday's strike came when there were "no clashes or confrontations" at the site.

"The air strike completely destroyed the targeted building and also damaged nearby houses," it said.

"More fatalities may be trapped under the rubble, but recovery and identification are proving difficult in light of the massive impact of the blast." Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades," UN human rights chief Volker Turk said last month.

Flashpoint cities in the northern West Bank like Tulkarm and Jenin have suffered repeated large-scale operations against Palestinian fighters.

"What happened in Tulkarm camp is just a thumbnail image of what is happening in the Gaza Strip: targeting civilians, women, elders and children, also killing them in cold blood," said Faisal Salameh, head of the camp refugee council.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank over the past year, according to health Palestinian authorities, many of them armed fighters but many also unarmed youths throwing stones during protests, or civilian passers-by.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities.