JERUSALEM — At least 18 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late on Thursday.

The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa said the air strike had hit a cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp where many civilians had been present.

The Israeli military said the air force had conducted a strike in Tulkarm in a joint operation with its Shin Bet security service and had killed the head of Hamas in Tulkarm and "other significant terrorists".

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Since then more than 700 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, saying they are trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

The Israeli military has carried out dozens of air strikes in the occupied West Bank in the past year, but normally using drones or helicopters.

One resident from the area told AFP news agency the Israeli had "hit a cafeteria in a three-story building."

"There are many victims in the hospital," the resident added, saying the death toll would likely rise.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike had killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who it said had attempted a car bombing last month and supplied weapons.

Wafa quoted a local official as saying children and elderly people from several families had been killed in the strike.

Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a major Israeli military operation in August.

Last month UN rights chief Volker Turk said major Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank were taking place "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades".

Over the past year more than 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry says.

Meanwhile, at least 24 Israelis including members of the security forces have been killed by Palestinian attackers in the same period, according to Israeli officials. — BBC