An Israeli air strike has killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry says, as Israel says one of its soldiers had been killed, as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the region.

Israel said its aircraft fired on Palestinian militants who had attacked troops in the city of Jenin on Sunday, while the Palestinian ministry said the strike targeted people who had gathered at the site, and eyewitnesses said the attack happened as Israeli forces were withdrawing.

“One of the martyrs was decapitated,” Mujahid Nazzal, a Palestinian doctor and first responder at the scene, told Reuters.

“It seemed the missile directly hit him.

“Others had their limbs severed.

“A seventh person was seriously injured and taken by the ambulance.”

Another witness, Ahmed Suleiman, said the air strike happened at the entrance of Jenin in an area called Martyr’s Triangle.

“You can see the effects of the missile – blood and body parts scattered everywhere,” he said.

Four of those killed were brothers, according to family members.

An Israeli border police officer was killed and others wounded when their vehicle was hit by an explosive device during operations in Jenin, the Israeli military and police said.

A helicopter helped rescue them with covering fire, the military said, adding that an aircraft fired at a “terrorist squad that hurled explosives and endangered our forces – a number of terrorists were killed”.

The Jenin Brigade, an armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on the Israeli security forces.

Blinken started his week-long trip on Saturday, aimed at calming tension that has spiked during Israel’s war with the militant Hamas group that controls the narrow Gaza strip.

The West Bank had already experienced its highest levels of unrest in decades during the 18 months before the October 7 attack on Israel.

Confrontations have risen sharply as Israeli forces launched an invasion of Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers in the past weeks and security forces have made thousands of arrests.