Israel killed at least 10 Palestinians on Wednesday when it launched large-scale military operations across the occupied West Bank.
Two Palestinians were killed in the city of Jenin, four others in a nearby village and four more in a refugee camp near the town of Tubas, said the Red Crescent’s Ahmed Jibril. He added that 15 others had been wounded.
The Palestinian Health Ministry also confirmed that seven people were killed early Wednesday in Tubas and another two in Jenin. The ministry identified the two killed in Jenin as Qassam Jabarin, 25, and Asem Balout, 39.
Palestinian resistance groups, meanwhile, said they were exchanging fire with the Israeli military. The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said on Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had surrounded the city, blocking exit and entry points and access to hospitals, and ripping up infrastructure in the camp.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said “large forces” had entered Jenin, as well as Tulkarem and the al-Faraa refugee camp dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank.
He claimed the nine dead were all fighters, including three killed in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four in an airstrike in al-Faraa. He said another five suspects were arrested and that the raids were the first stage of an even larger operation.
The operation comes two days after Israel said it carried out an airstrike on the West Bank that the Palestinian Authority reported killed five people.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israeli forces had blocked the roads leading to a hospital with dirt barriers and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin. Shoshani said the military was trying to prevent armed resistance members from taking shelter in hospitals.
An Associated Press reporter saw army vehicles blocking all the entrances to al-Faraa camp. Military jeeps and bulldozers entered the camp and soldiers were seen patrolling its alleyways by foot. Water leaked onto the damaged streets from houses where fighting had damaged tanks and pipes. Shots rang out every few minutes.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz drew comparisons with Gaza and called for similar measures in the West Bank.
“We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps might be required. This is a war in every respect, and we must win it,” he wrote on the platform X.
Shoshani said there was no plan to evacuate civilians.
Hamas called on Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up, calling the raids part of a larger plan to expand the war in Gaza and blaming the escalation on U.S. support for Israel. The militant group called on security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which co-operates with Israel, to “join the sacred battle of our people.”
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the raids as a “serious escalation” and called on the United States to intervene. Abbas later announced he was cutting short a visit to Saudi Arabia and returning to the West Bank, where his government is based.
Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion triggered Tel Aviv’s genocidal war there.
At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have died during such raids.
Tel Aviv says the operations are required to dismantle Hamas and other resistance groups and to prevent attacks on Israelis, which have also risen since the start of the war.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for a future state.
Israel has built scores of illegal settlements across the West Bank, which are home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers.
They have Israeli citizenship, while the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited control over population centers.
Gaza violence continues
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in Gaza overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 24 people, including five women and five children, according to Palestinian health officials. AP reporters at two hospitals confirmed the toll.
One strike hit tents housing displaced people near the central town of Deir al-Balah, killing eight including two brothers, 6 and 17 years old.
Israel claims it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because its alleges members fight in dense residential areas.
The U.S., Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a cease-fire that would see the remaining hostages released. But the talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed “total victory” over Hamas and the resistance group has demanded a lasting cease-fire and a full withdrawal from the territory.
There was no sign of a breakthrough after days of talks in Egypt, and the negotiations move to Qatar this week.
