JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH: Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale and significant military operation.”
The action, launched a day after US 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 Iranian-backed militants.
“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.
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 the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major center of armed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.
Hamas, based in Gaza, has over recent years expanded its reach in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the rival Fatah faction, exercises limited governance. On Tuesday, Hamas called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.
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 nine Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded in the Israeli raid, which continued well into the night. A week earlier, 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
Hard-line 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 militant groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers.”
Earlier, Smotrich welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians. He said he looked forward to cooperating with the new US administration in expanding settlements, which most countries consider to be in violation of international law.
In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation in Jenin, Palestinians in 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, around the village of Al-Funduq, near Qalqilya, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.
“There was a carpenter’s shop here where I have been working for the past eight years,” said Abdulmalek Farajallah, who said more than 200 settlers had taken part in the attack. “They burned it down, and our neighbors’ buildings and cars over there. No one can do anything.”
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.
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.
