At least nine Palestinians have been killed after Israel launched a large-scale ground and air attack on the northern part of the occupied West Bank, according to health officials in the territory.
The incursion, which began early Wednesday, involved hundreds of ground troops backed by fighter jets, drones and bulldozers, targeting three areas simultaneously – Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas – in the largest assault in two decades.
The director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s ambulance service told Tel Aviv Tribune that Israeli forces killed four people in the Far’a refugee camp in Tubas.
The Red Crescent said its teams were having difficulty reaching the wounded as Israeli forces were preventing ambulances from entering the area.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two people were killed in Jenin, while three others were killed when an Israeli drone struck their vehicle in the nearby village of Seir.
Reporting from Nablus in the West Bank, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Nida Ibrahim said Israeli forces had described the operation in the north of the occupied territory as the largest of its kind since 2002.
An estimated 80,000 Palestinians live in areas where military operations continue.
The number of raids in the West Bank has “more than tripled” since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October, she said, adding that residents of several towns and villages confirmed to Tel Aviv Tribune that three strikes took place in three different locations overnight.
“In recent weeks, we have seen an intensification of the use of airstrikes against Palestinian fighters… with the Israeli military saying it is combating the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices),” Ibrahim said.
Omar Baddar, a Middle East political analyst, said the incursion appeared to be part of a long-term Israeli strategy to “ethnically cleanse” Palestinian territory.
“I think the context is worth noting, which is that Israel has been planning to annex and ethnically cleanse large parts of the West Bank for a very, very long time,” Baddar told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The Israeli military described the nine people killed as “armed terrorists who posed a threat to security forces.” In a message posted on Telegram, it also claimed to have arrested other “wanted suspects” in Jenin and Tulkarem, while confiscating explosives “planted under the roads” in the Far’a camp.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on the army to evacuate Palestinians from the West Bank, in a message posted on X.
“We must confront the threat in the West Bank as we do in Gaza, including through the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and all other necessary measures. This is a war for all and we must win it,” he wrote on Wednesday.
Israeli forces closed roads leading to Jenin, Tulkarem and Far’a camp.
Residents of the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem have been given three hours to leave if they wish. “There is no direct evacuation order, but it suggests a potential escalation,” Ibrahim said.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority (PA) presidency, said that the escalation of Israel’s war in the West Bank, in addition to the war in the Gaza Strip, would lead to “terrible and dangerous” results.
“Israel’s number one target is not Gaza, but the West Bank. This is the heart of what they call the biblical land,” Hassan Barari, a professor of international relations at Qatar University, told Tel Aviv Tribune, adding that Israel aims to expel even more Palestinians.
But the Israeli military will likely continue to face fierce resistance from a new generation of hardened fighters who are equally determined to protect their homeland, without pinning their hopes on the PA, Barari added.
Citing Israeli military sources, Israeli media reported that the army is expected to continue the raids for several days.
Baddar said: “I think they (Israeli forces) saw an opportunity, given that the world is distracted by the horror that Israel is unleashing on Gaza, to provoke some kind of escalation in the West Bank.”
In Jenin, the director of one of the city’s hospitals was informed that the Israeli army intended to raid the medical facility and ordered the evacuation of the premises. The hospital has 200 employees and 150 patients.
Palestinian armed groups said they were fighting Israeli forces in the Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps.
The al-Quds Brigades said its “fighters targeted an enemy infantry force with a high explosive device in Nur Shams.”
The Qassam Brigades said it had “detonated locally-made explosive devices in Jenin against the invading military vehicles” and that its fighters were “engaged in violent clashes with the occupation forces.”
“Under threat”
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza, nightly raids by the Israeli army have become commonplace in West Bank towns and villages, with Israeli soldiers and settlers killing at least 646 Palestinians, including 148 children, and wounding more than 5,400, Palestinian health officials said.
During that period, Israeli soldiers arrested at least 10,200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society and the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
The same groups report that at least 3,432 Palestinians are being held in Israeli military prisons without charge under “administrative detention.”
At least 1,432 Palestinian homes and other structures have been demolished, displacing 3,270 Palestinians, according to the United Nations.
There has also been an increase in violence by settlers – Israeli citizens living illegally on private Palestinian land, both in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, called the Israeli operation “an act of war.”
The extent of the damage inflicted by Israeli forces on the Palestinian territory’s infrastructure also indicates their aim to make it uninhabitable for its citizens, Barghouti told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“They destroyed water pipes, power lines, houses, schools. What do they want? They want to create a situation in which we can no longer live in our country and that is exactly what the settlers are planning.”