Israel today launched a large-scale military operation in the West Bank, killing nine Palestinian fighters
Palestinian Territories: Israel began a massive military assault in the West Bank today, claiming nine Palestinian combatants dead, while the almost 11-month-old Gaza conflict continued unabated.
The extraordinary October 7 strikes on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas set off the Gaza war, which has resulted in a spike of violence in the West Bank.
The health ministry of the Hamas-run enclave in Gaza reports that over 40,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict. Additionally, it has resulted in extensive damage, forced almost all 2.4 million residents of Gaza to flee their homes at least once, and created a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Israeli military conducted a series of well-planned raids on four towns in the West Bank early on Wednesday: Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, and Tulkarem.
Israeli armored car columns broke into Jenin and two refugee camps, Tubas and Tulkarem.
By lunchtime, troops began shooting at the camps from which gunshots and explosions could be heard, according to AFP photographers. They were also obstructing the cities’ and camps’ entrances.
The army said that Israeli bulldozers removed asphalt from the streets in search of roadside explosives.
The Palestinian Red Crescent updated its initial death toll of ten to nine, saying that Israeli soldiers killed nine and injured fifteen during the operations.
In order to “follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank,” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas canceled his trip to Saudi Arabia and returned home, according to Palestinian state media.
Nine Palestinian “terrorists” have been slain, according to the Israeli army, which has not yet suffered any losses.
According to army spokeswoman Nadav Shoshani, soldiers were engaging in gunfire with insurgents after coming across explosives. He remained silent when asked how many people were involved or how long the procedure would take.
He clarified that the operation was neither “very different (from regular army activity in the area) or special.”
“This Is War.”
However, Foreign Minister Israel Katz had a different opinion, stating that the military has been “operating in full force since last night” in an effort to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.
He accused Iran, Israel’s principal regional adversary, of attempting to “establish an eastern front against Israel” in a post on X, citing its support of Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon as the “models” for these two regions.
“We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures,” Katz said.
“This is a war, and we must win it.”
An AFP calculation based on information from the Palestinian health ministry shows that over 650 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli forces or Israelis in the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7 offensive.
Israeli sources claim that within the same time frame, Palestinian assaults have claimed the lives of at least 19 Israelis.
In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, military actions by the Israelis are a regular occurrence, although they seldom occur in many towns at once.
Israel’s operations in the West Bank have concentrated in recent weeks on the northern section of the area, where armed organizations are most active.
Hospital Patients Run Away
A prominent Palestinian terrorist was slain in Lebanon, the army said last week. The militant was accused of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and working with Iranian troops.
A statement criticizing Israel’s “open war” was released early on Wednesday by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist organization that is closely associated with Hamas and is well-established in the northern West Bank.
“With this aggression, which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank,” stated the statement.
Reiterating its appeal for Palestinians in the area to “rise up” late on Tuesday, Hamas has seen a sharp increase in popularity in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza conflict.
Its declaration was a reaction to remarks made this week by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a member of the far-right party, who said that if given the opportunity, he would construct a synagogue inside the Al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem.
As a settler, Ben Gvir has publicly advocated for the annexation of the West Bank.
Families in need in Gaza kept moving in accordance with the evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that “nearly 650 patients have fled” from the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, which was the target of one of the most recent attacks.
On its website, the medical organization states that despite a serious shortage of supplies and resources, it “quickly opened a field hospital and started receiving patients.”
According to MSF, field hospitals are “only a last resort in response to Israel’s dismantling of the healthcare system,” not a solution.
According to Gaza’s civil defense service, fresh Israeli attacks have left at least 12 people dead, including a lady and at least one kid.
1,199 persons, mostly civilians, were killed in Hamas’s October 7 strike, according to an AFP count based on Israeli government statistics.
The health ministry of Gaza reports that at least 40,534 individuals have died as a result of Israel’s military campaign of retaliation. Most of the deceased, according to the UN rights office, are women and children.
