Tulkarem, West Bank - The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces assaulting the illegally occupied West Bank shot dead two women on Sunday, including one who was eight months pregnant.

Israeli forces launched an assault on the Nur Shams refugee camp, on the outskirts of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, at dawn on Sunday, as part of an ongoing deadly siege on the West Bank.

The Palestinian health ministry said 23-year-old Sundus Jamal Muhammad Shalabi was killed in a pre-dawn incident, with her husband Yazan Abu Shola critically injured.

The mother-to-be was dead when she arrived at a local hospital, the ministry said.

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"Medical teams were unable to save the baby's life due to the (Israeli) occupation preventing the transfer of the injured to the hospital," it added.

Murad Alyan, a member of the popular committee in the Nur Shams camp, told AFP that the couple "were trying to leave the camp before the occupation forces advanced into it. They were shot while they were inside their car."

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned what it described as "a crime of execution committed by the occupation forces," accusing Israeli forces of "deliberately targeting defenceless civilians."

The health ministry later said a second woman, 21-year-old Rahaf Fouad Abdullah al-Ashqar was killed in a separate incident in Nur Shams.

A source in the camp's popular committee said she was killed and her father wounded when the "Israeli forces used explosives to open the door of their family house."

AFP footage from Nur Shams showed army bulldozers clearing a path in front of what appeared to be empty buildings in the densely packed camp, which is home to about 13,000 people.

The Israeli military earlier said its forces were "expanding the operation in northern Samaria," using the biblical term for the north of the West Bank, which Israel has illegally occupied since 1967.

The Palestinian health ministry has said at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank this year, with Israel shifting the focus of its aggression while a ceasefire in Gaza still holds.

At least 886 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or rampaging settlers in the West Bank since October 7, 2023.