The Israeli offensive in the northern West Bank, one of the largest since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005, has claimed 18 lives in its first two days. The latest, on Thursday, were five Palestinians in a mosque in the town of Tulkarem, where the raid and clashes with militants continue. The Israeli army claims that the five were Islamic Jihad terrorists, including Muhhamad Jabber, known as Abu Shuyaa, its leader in the Nur Shams refugee camp. Islamic Jihad has acknowledged his death, after surviving several assassination attempts.
The army launched a massive simultaneous offensive in three areas of the northern West Bank early Wednesday, killing more than a dozen Palestinians on its first day. That same day, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for action in the West Bank as in Gaza, “including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any other measures that may be necessary.” So far, eight Palestinians have been killed in the Jenin region, six in Tulkarem and four in Tubas. There are also more than 20 wounded, in what Amnesty International described on Thursday as a “terrible increase” in the use of lethal force.
The operation began early on Wednesday with hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel carriers attacking the towns of Tulkarem, Jenin and areas of the Jordan Valley. There was also a complete network disruption at the Jawwal company, one of the two main telecommunications companies in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, a witness said.
In Jenin on Thursday, bulldozers moved through empty streets to the sound of drones in the background. Israeli troops remained stationed outside the city’s main hospital. On Wednesday, the military blocked access to the hospital with mounds of earth and controlled the entry of ambulances to prevent fighters from seeking shelter there. The Palestinian Red Crescent has denounced that troops are preventing ambulances from approaching to assist the wounded and have surrounded the hospital in Jenin. It has also denounced that they have lost contact with their medical staff on site.
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The armed wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah said in separate statements on Wednesday that their men had detonated bombs targeting Israeli military vehicles in Jenin, Tulkarem and Fara’a, a refugee camp near the city of Tubas. Two soldiers were wounded.
Settler attacks
Military pressure and attacks on people and property by radical Jewish settlers in the West Bank have escalated in parallel with the Gaza war. Raids are even more frequent, leaving an average of two dead. Clashes with militants from various factions, both traditional and newly formed local, have also increased. Israel claims that Iran provides arms and support to Palestinian militant factions.
Minister Katz said in a message on X in the early hours of Wednesday, referring to the attack on the West Bank launched that same night: “This is a war in every sense, and we must win it.” He accused Iran of working to destabilize Jordan and establish an eastern front against Israel, as it has done in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel has been exchanging fire almost daily with militants from the Iranian group Hezbollah. To address the threat of an eastern front, Katz said Israel would have to use “all necessary means, including, in cases of intense combat, allowing the population to temporarily evacuate from one neighborhood to another to avoid harm to civilians.”
Since the Gaza war began, thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in attacks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and more than 660 fighters and civilians have been killed, 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 counts.
In Gaza, meanwhile, the army has forcibly displaced almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants several times, leading to a humanitarian crisis and the spread of deadly diseases. One of them, polio, has returned to the Strip after 25 years. The World Health Organization is preparing to begin vaccinations this weekend. There is an agreement with Israel not to bomb certain areas. It is not the ceasefire or, failing that, the one-week humanitarian pause that the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, had asked for, as the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been at pains to remind in a statement, so as not to appear weak.
The latest round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages, of whom about 100 are still held captive — some alive, dozens dead. The subsequent invasion has devastated parts of the enclave and killed more than 40,500 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
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