Israeli army launches major operation in West Bank

The Israeli military carried out raids across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in what Foreign Minister Israel Katz said was a bid "to dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructures" in the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps. 

Palestinian officials said at least 10 Palestinians have been killed in fighting in the two cities.

Since Israel began its retaliation against the Islamist extremist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response to the deadly October 7 attacks on Israel, the Israeli military has been carrying out near-daily raids in the West Bank that it says aim to root out militant groups there.

Israel, Germany, the United States and several other countries designate Hamas as a terrorist organization.

At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the war in Gaza began some 10 months ago, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Israel has said it is targeting armed militants in the West Bank, but at least 115 of those killed were children, according to the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA.

What has Israel said?

In his posting on messaging platform X, formerly Twitter, Katz wrote, "Iran is working to establish an eastern terror front against Israel in Judea and Samaria," using a term for the West Bank frequently employed by Israeli officials.

Katz said Iran was "funding and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons from Jordan" into the West Bank.

"We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any necessary measures," he wrote. "This is a war, and we must win it."

The Israeli army said it had killed nine Palestinian "terrorists" in its ongoing operation, including "five terrorists in an operations room" in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem. It said there were no casualties on the Israeli side so far.

"We have met explosives already in the first hours, and we have met real-time fire exchanged with terrorists engaging in battle," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Nadav Shoshani told reporters, adding that Israeli troops were targeting a "mixture of terror groups and terror cells."

In somewhat of a contrast to Katz's remarks, Shoshani said the current operation was not "extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special."

He did, however, say that Wednesday's raids were the first stage of an even larger operation. 

Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank on Wednesday,

Jenin access reportedly blocked

According to Palestinians, Israeli forces have sealed off the city of Jenin.

Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told Palestinian radio that the city was surrounded with access to and from it blocked. He said access to hospitals had also been sealed off.

Palestinian militant groups said they were exchanging fire with the Israeli military.

Palestinian official media said President Mahmoud Abbas has headed home early from a visit to Saudi Arabia to "follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank."  

Much of the West Bank is under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority in limited control of some areas.

The territory is home to some 3 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 Jewish settlers.

tj/sms (AP, Reuters)