Israel launches ‘significant’ military operation in West Bank, at least eight Palestinians killed

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH: Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale and significant military operation”.

The action, launched a day after U.S. President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against the Palestinian group.

“We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.

The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank.

The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in self-rule areas of the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major centre of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.

Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its reach in the West Bank over recent years, called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.

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As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.

Palestinian health services said at least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded as the Israeli raid began, a week after an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.

Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids.

Protecting settlers

Hardline pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Israeli policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a “strong and ongoing campaign” against groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers”.

Smotrich earlier welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration in expanding settlements.

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Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.

The internationally recognised Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule over some territory in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.

In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation, Palestinians throughout the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza.

Late on Monday, bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of al-Funduq, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.

The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said were aimed at “dismembering the West Bank”.

“We call on the new American administration to intervene to stop these crimes and Israeli policies that will not bring peace and security to anyone,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office said in a statement.