Israel launches deadly West Bank operation as Gaza war drags on
Israel launched large-scale military aggression Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, where its army said it killed nine Palestinian fighters as the nearly 11-month Gaza war showed no signs of abating.
Violence has surged in the West Bank during Israeli aggression that was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks.
The Israelis have killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. It has also caused widespread destruction, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
In the West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli military launched a series of coordinated attacks across four cities – Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem.
Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin. By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, AFP photographers said, with soldiers firing at the camps from which gunfire and explosions were heard.
Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed nine people and wounded 15 others in the raids, revising its previous toll of 10 dead.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to “follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank”, Palestinian official media said.
Soldiers encountered explosives and were exchanging fire with fighters, said army spokesman Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how many were involved or how long the operation would last. The operation, he added, was not “extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special”.
Foreign Minster Israel Katz had a different take, however, saying the military was “operating in full force since last night” in a bid to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.
In a post on X, he accused Iran, Israel’s main foe in the region, of seeking to “establish an eastern front against Israel” based on the “model” for Gaza and Lebanon, where it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively.
“We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures,” Katz said. “This is a war, and we must win it.”
Since October 7, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.
During the same period, at least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli officials.
While Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.
In recent weeks, Israel’s West Bank operations have focused on the territory’s north, where armed groups are particularly active.
Last week, the army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian fighters in Lebanon, accusing him of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.
Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, issued a statement early Wednesday denouncing an “open war” by Israel.
“With this aggression, which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank,” the statement said.