Funerals held in West Bank city of Tubas as Israeli forces withdraw

The families of Palestinians killed in an air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas held funerals on Friday after Israeli forces withdrew following their latest raid in the territory.

Violence in the Palestinian territory had already soared alongside the nearly 12-month-old war in Gaza but in late August Israel began large-scale raids that residents say marked an escalation.

A military statement on Friday said Israeli forces had "conducted a 48-hour counter-terrorism operation" in the areas of Tubas, Tamun and Faraa, killing "five armed terrorists" in an air strike and a sixth in "exchanges of fire" with "a terrorist that hurled explosive devices".

Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring "at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades," the United Nations human rights chief said this week.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the military withdrew from Tubas on Thursday evening, allowing the funerals to go ahead.

The four men buried in Tubas on Friday were killed in the air strike, which the Palestine Red Crescent Society said occurred at dawn on Wednesday.

On Friday morning, hundreds of people including armed Palestinian militants walked through the streets of Tubas alongside the four bodies hoisted on stretchers and wrapped in white cloth.

Some in the crowd waved the green flag of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and gunfire punctuated the mourners' chants.