Israeli raids kill two Palestinian women

Razed and damaged roads, and residents leaving their houses as Israel continued its military operation in the West Bank.

Two Palestinian women, one of them pregnant, were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as Israel stepped up raids on militants in the area.

The ministry said Israeli forces in Nur Shams in the northern West Bank shot 23-year-old Sundos Jamal Mohammed Shalabi, who was eight months pregnant and whose unborn child did not survive, and critically wounded her husband.

The Israeli military said the incident was being probed by its military police criminal investigation unit.

Details of the deaths were not immediately clear. The Palestinian state news agency cited eyewitnesses as saying that Shalabi and her husband were shot as they were trying to leave their home.

Another woman, aged 21, was shot dead in a separate incident, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli military said its forces were scanning a house for a militant and that they called on inhabitants to exit the building. The woman did not come out and was fatally wounded when they used force to breach the door, the military said.

It added that it regrets harm to civilians, which it tries to prevent.

The military announced it was expanding a counter-terrorism operation in the north of the West Bank to Nur Shams, a historic refugee camp close to the Palestinian town Tulkarm.

Israel's military, police and intelligence services started the counter-terrorism operation in Jenin on January 21, described by officials as a "large-scale and significant military operation."

The operation expanded to Tulkarm, Al Faraa and Tamun, with the military saying it was targeting militants.