JERUSALEM – Israeli forces launched a large operation in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, killing at least 10 Hamas militants, carrying out arrests and sealing off the volatile city of Jenin.
The ongoing operation was among the largest in the West Bank in months, and a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extends far beyond the war in Gaza that began with Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. Israel says it is rooting out West Bank militants to prevent attacks, while Palestinians fear it intends to broaden the war and expel them from territories they want for a future state.
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Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said “large forces” had entered Jenin, long a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp dating to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank.
He said Israeli forces killed three militants in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four in an airstrike in Al-Faraa. He said another five suspected militants were arrested, and that the raids were the first stage of an even larger operation. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.
Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank on Wednesday, including three of the four men killed in Jenin. It was not immediately clear if the fourth was also a fighter. The Israeli military said all of the dead were militants.
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.
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 militants 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 ruptured 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 cooperate 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 U.S. to intervene. Abbas announced he was cutting short a visit to Saudi Arabia and returning to the West Bank, where his government is based.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for Israel to immediately halt its operation in the West Bank, according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Guterres also called on Israel to protect civilians and urged its forces "to exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable to protect life,” Dujarric said.
At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the war in Gaza began over 10 months ago, according to the Palestinian ministry. Most have died during raids, which often trigger gunbattles with militants.
Israel says the operations are required to dismantle Hamas and other militant groups. Attacks on Israelis have risen since the start of the war.
The Israeli operation comes as Hamas is using the West Bank as a base for organizing more attacks, using weapons smuggled from Iran and taking advantage of the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, according to Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian issues at Tel Aviv University.
He predicted similar operations in the future because Israeli authorities don’t seem to have a strategy for defeating Hamas in either Gaza or the West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the bodies of seven people were brought to the hospital in Tubas, another West Bank city, and another two were brought to the hospital in Jenin. The ministry identified two killed in Jenin as Qassam Jabarin, 25, and Asem Balout, 39. Hamas claimed Jabarin as a fighter and said another two fighters, Mohammed Abu Zumeiro and Ahmed al-Sous, were killed in Jenin.
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 settlements across the West Bank, which is home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers. The settlers 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.
The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. The militants are still holding 108 hostages, around a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were militants. Around 90% of Gaza's population has been displaced, often multiple times, and Israeli bombardment and ground operations have caused vast destruction.
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.
“He’s alive!” their mother shouted as the teenager's body was carried to the morgue. She later sobbed and cradled both of them.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants fight in dense residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes in Gaza, which often kill women and children.
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 militant 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.
One of the hostages was released Tuesday after Israeli forces found him in a tunnel. After a short stay in a hospital he returned Wednesday to his Bedouin village where he got a hero’s welcome.
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Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Eleanor Reich in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war