At least ten Palestinians were killed in a large-scale Israeli attack on the northern occupied West Bank, focusing on the governorates of Tulkarem, Jenin and Tubas.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, four people were killed by Israeli forces in the Fara’a refugee camp in Tubas, three people in an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle in the village of Seir, near the city of Jenin, and two were killed in Jenin itself.
Another Palestinian was later shot dead in the village of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin, according to the Wafa news agency.
Jenin, which has a population of about 39,000, was reportedly completely sealed off by Israeli forces. Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub said Israeli forces had cut off access to hospitals and other medical facilities in Jenin, and Israeli media reported that Israeli soldiers had surrounded hospitals in Tulkarm and Tubas.
The Israeli military described the assault, which began early Wednesday, as the largest in the West Bank in two decades, and issued a joint statement with Israeli police describing it as a “counter-terrorism operation” targeting Palestinian fighters.
Let’s take a closer look.
How often do Israeli forces attack Palestinians in the occupied West Bank?
Israeli attacks in the West Bank have been occurring almost daily since 2022, before the current far-right Israeli government came to power.
They target Palestinian towns, refugee camps and villages and have killed hundreds of people.
Between Israeli military raids and attacks by Israeli settlers, around 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 2022.
The military raids are part of Israel’s policy of dealing with the West Bank, illegally occupied since 1967, by force rather than accepting the creation of a Palestinian state. The aim is generally to ensure that Palestinian resistance groups do not become powerful enough to challenge Israel.
Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank lack the firepower of those in Gaza, and Israel has long tried to ensure that this is the case, including by cooperating on security matters with the Palestinian Authority (PA), a practice that has made the PA unpopular among Palestinians.
Israelis living in illegal settlements regularly attack Palestinians, particularly those living in villages and rural communities, harassing them, violently assaulting them and sometimes forcing them to leave their land.
Israeli military raids and settler attacks have increased in number and violence since October 7 and the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
How unprecedented is Wednesday’s military operation?
This is clearly a large-scale military operation, in which Israel is deploying hundreds of troops, as well as fighter jets, drones and bulldozers, in three West Bank governorates.
Israeli media, citing Israeli military sources, expect the attack to continue for several days, meaning the death toll is likely to rise significantly, especially since the towns and villages under attack are filled with Palestinian civilians.
Israel itself describes the attack as the largest of its kind in the West Bank since 2002, when the Palestinian territory was in the midst of the second intifada, or uprising.
At the time, Israel was criticized for the brutality of its response to an initial wave of nonviolent protests, civil disobedience and stone-throwing.
By the end of the Intifada in 2005, Israel had killed 4,793 Palestinians. Israeli casualties are estimated at around 1,000.
What is the link between the Israeli attacks in the West Bank and the war in Gaza?
Israel has long portrayed its military operations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as with Hezbollah in Lebanon, as battlegrounds within a single conflict, both against the Palestinians and against Israel’s main regional geopolitical foe, Iran.
Israel considers groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as many other Palestinian movements, to be proxies of Iran.
After the attack began in the northern West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on social media that Iran was “working to establish an eastern terrorist front” against Israel in the West Bank, by “funding and arming terrorists and smuggling sophisticated weapons from Jordan.”
But, as mentioned earlier, Israel’s large-scale attacks in the West Bank predate October 7, with a particular increase in the ferocity of Israeli attacks following the return to power of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – backed by openly anti-Palestinian figures in key ministerial positions – at the very end of 2022.
The presence of combat helicopters in attacks in the West Bank also occurred before October 7, including during a two-day raid on the Jenin refugee camp in July 2023. At the time, Israel said it carried out 15 airstrikes using combat helicopters and reconnaissance drones.
What does Israel want from the West Bank?
Although technically under the control of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, much of the West Bank is monitored and governed by Israel, and Israeli forces have the ability to enter any part of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israeli soldiers are permanently stationed throughout the West Bank, and illegal Israeli settlements and Israeli-only roads crisscross the territory, leaving the prospect of a Palestinian state remote. The International Court of Justice recently declared Israel’s continued presence in the occupied West Bank, as well as occupied East Jerusalem, “illegal.”
Israel often presents its occupation of the West Bank as a security necessity, but Netanyahu and other Israeli political leaders have rejected a two-state solution, openly called for an increase in illegal Israeli settlements and stressed the centrality of the territory, which they call “Judea and Samaria,” to Israel.
Moreover, control of construction and responsibility for policing in the West Bank is overseen by two of the most controversial and pro-settler ministers in the Israeli government.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently took over overall control of construction in the West Bank, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is in charge of overseeing construction. Both have spoken out in favor of further Israeli expansion into the Palestinian territory and have been repeatedly accused of supporting settler violence against Palestinian citizens in the territory. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are settlers themselves.
And now, as attacks continue in the West Bank, Foreign Minister Katz has called for the “temporary evacuation” of Palestinians from the West Bank – raising fears that Israel is attempting to forcibly relocate Palestinians from the territory.
According to Omar Baddar, a Middle East political analyst, this is part of the broader Israeli strategy.
“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.