Israel has launched a major offensive in the West Bank,
Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel carriers raided Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm and Tubas in the north of the West Bank.
The Israeli military said it was preparing a statement, having earlier released the names of the five Palestinian fighters it killed on Monday in the West Bank’s Nur Shams refugee camp.
Palestinian health authorities said at least 12 Palestinians were killed in Wednesday’s operations.
The raids on the West Bank
Israeli security forces started a large-scale counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank early on Wednesday involving drones and helicopter gunships, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said.
Islamic Jihad and Fatah factions said in separate statements their gunmen were detonating bombs against Israeli military vehicles in Jenin, Tulkarm and the Far’a refugee camp near Tubas.
Islamic Jihad said Israel was trying to expand the conflict from Gaza to the West Bank, adding its fighters were using machine guns in close-range combat with Israeli troops and targeting military bulldozers with explosives.
Israel launched the operation early on Wednesday morning, striking areas in the north of the West Bank. Source: AAP / Alaa Baderneh/EPA
The IDF wrote on X that the operation killed: three “armed terrorists who posed a threat to the security forces” and two “additional armed terrorists, apprehended wanted suspects, and located and confiscated weapons including M-16s, ammunition and additional military equipment”.
“Additionally, the forces exposed and dismantled explosives that were planted under the roads in the area and were intended to be detonated in attacks against the security forces operating in the area,” the IDF said.
The Israeli military also said its troops had killed five Palestinian fighters who were hiding inside a mosque in Tulkarm.
The IDF also said it had initiated an “aerial counterterrorism operation in the area of Far’a, during which, an aircraft struck and eliminated four armed terrorists that posed a threat to the forces”.
“The forces confiscated weapons and exposed and dismantled explosives that were planted under the roads in the area.”
Masoud Naaja, the father of two young men killed in the strike on Far’a said he was giving water to some men who asked for a drink when he was wounded.
“In seconds, very fast, we felt like something came down on us from the sky and there was an explosion,” he said.
“When I put my hand on my chest, it was full of shrapnel and blood.”
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said he is “deeply concerned by the latest developments in the occupied West Bank” and “strongly condemns the loss of lives, including of children”.
“He calls on Israel to comply with its relevant obligations under international humanitarian law and to take measures to protect civilians and ensure their safety,” he said.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said Israel’s raids risk “deepening the already catastrophic situation” in the West Bank.
What is Israel trying to do in the West Bank?
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz posted on X that IDF operations in the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps have been launched to: “dismantle Islamic-Iranian terror infrastructures established there”.
“Iran is working to destabilise Jordan and establish an eastern terror front against Israel, following the Gaza and Lebanon models, by funding and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons into Jordan then into Judea and Samaria,” he said
Judea and Samaria are ancient names for the West Bank, which some Israelis use to suggest that this territory should belong to Israel.
Katz has called for the “temporary evacuation” of Palestinians from the areas that Israel has attacked.
Doctor Anas Iqtait, a lecturer in economics and the political economy of the Middle East from the Australian National University, told SBS News that Israel is responding to the formation of Palestinian militias in refugee camps primarily in the northern parts of the West Bank.
Iqtait said Israel has conducted similar operations over the past three years but they haven’t resulted in the elimination of these groups.
“I don’t think that there will be a positive outcome overall from Israel’s perspective, or at least the security perspective of the presence of these groups and their operations,” he said.
While , Israel is facing a serious escalation of tensions with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Iqtait said that, while these raids may have been spurred by the threat of Iranian influence on groups fighting Israel, they also represent a wider move by the Israeli government to consolidate power in the West Bank.
“This power consolidation has three primary pillars, basically. One is settlements and settlement expansion in the West Bank. The second is complete security control over the West Bank. And then the third, isolating Palestinian communities across the West Bank.”
“So, this operation obviously falls within these three pillars,” Iqtait said.
In addition to the development of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Israel has built hundreds of physical barriers throughout the West Bank.
Speaking to SBS News independent journalist Antony Loewenstein described the West Bank operations as “disturbing” and said the IDF is playing “whack-a-mole” by trying to root out resistance to the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.
“But the fact is that if you occupy people as Israel has done for over half a century, there will be resistance,” he said.
“Many Palestinians that I know who are seeing what’s happening to their brothers and sisters in Gaza, which for those who aren’t aware, geographically is pretty much just down the road from what’s happening in the West Bank are worried that similar things might happen to Gaza.”
What is life like for Palestinians in the West Bank?
The West Bank has been and the military carries out daily raids.
Clashes in the West Bank have risen sharply . Israel has stepped up operations against armed militant groups in the territory, while Jewish settlers have also launched frequent vigilante-style attacks on Palestinian communities.
Iqtait said there has been “accelerated violence” against Palestinians across the West Bank since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and said it was a “wild west” for violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian people.
“There is no freedom of movement, absolutely no freedom of movement. There is no right to property, there’s no right to land. There’s no right to leave the West Bank and enter at will because everything has to go through the Israeli military, no right to trade, no right to seek healthcare or education without the permission of the Israeli military,” he said.
Iqtait said violence against Palestinians in the West Bank “flies under the radar the vast majority of the time”.
“We have seen very little coverage of it before October the seventh and obviously after October the seventh,” he said.
Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in raids and more than 660 people have been killed in , according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 30 Israelis have been killed in attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the same period, according to Israeli tallies.
