AL-FARAA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (KAP) - Israeli forces launched a major operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday night, killing at least 10 Hamas fighters, making arrests and sealing off the volatile town of Jenin.
The ongoing operation was one of the largest in the West Bank in recent months and was a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes far beyond the Gaza war, which began with the Hamas attack on 7 October. Israel says it is liquidating fighters in the West Bank to prevent attacks, while Palestinians fear it intends to expand the war and drive them out of territory they want for a future state.
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli army spokesman, said "large forces" had entered Jenin, long a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the 1948 Middle East war-era Al-Faraa refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
He said Israeli forces killed three militants in an air strike in Tulkarem and four in an air strike in Al-Faraa. He added that five other suspected militants had been arrested and that the airstrikes were the first phase of an even larger operation. Palestinian officials said four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin.
Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters were killed in the West Bank on Wednesday, including three of the four men killed in Jenin. It was not immediately clear whether the fourth was also a fighter. The Israeli army said all the dead were fighters.
The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said on Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had surrounded the town, blocked exits and entrances, access to hospitals and smashed the infrastructure in the camp.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank said Israeli forces blocked roads leading to the hospital with earthen roadblocks and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin. Shoshani said the army was trying to prevent militants from taking refuge in hospitals.
An Associated Press reporter saw army vehicles blocking all entrances to Al-Faraa camp. Military jeeps and bulldozers entered the camp and soldiers were seen patrolling its streets on foot. Water poured into the damaged streets from houses where fighting had ruptured tanks and pipes. Gunfire could be heard every few minutes.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz used the Gaza comparison and called for similar measures in the West Bank.
"We must deal with the threat as well as the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of the Palestinian population and all possible steps. This is a war in every aspect and we must win it," he wrote on Platform X.
Shoshani said there was no plan to evacuate civilians.
Hamas has called on Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up, calling the airstrikes 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 cooperates with Israel, to "join the sacred struggle of our people."
Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians want all three areas for their future state.
Israel has built dozens of settlements throughout the West Bank, home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers. The settlers have Israeli citizenship, while the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military administration, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited control over population centres.
The Gaza war erupted when Hamas-led fighters invaded southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1 200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 250. The militants still hold 108 hostages, about a third of whom are believed dead, after most of the others were released during the November ceasefire.
Israel responded with an offensive that killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, without specifying how many were militants. Some 90 % Gazans have been displaced, often several times, and Israeli bombing and ground operations have caused widespread destruction.
According to Palestinian health officials, Israeli strikes in Gaza overnight and on Wednesday killed at least 24 people, including five women and five children. That number was confirmed by AP reporters at two hospitals.
One of the strikes hit tents housing displaced people near the central town of Deir al-Balah, killing eight people, including two brothers aged 6 and 17. "He's alive!" their mother screamed as her teenage son's body was taken to the morgue. Later, she sobbed and cradled the two.
Israel says it is trying to avoid injuring civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because the militants are fighting in densely populated areas. The army rarely comments on individual strikes in Gaza, which often kill women and children.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have been trying for months to broker a ceasefire that would lead to the release of the remaining hostages. But negotiations have repeatedly stalled as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised "total victory" over Hamas and the militant group has demanded a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from the territory.
After several days of talks in Egypt, there has been no breakthrough and the negotiations are moving to Qatar this week.
One of the hostages was released on Tuesday after Israeli forces found him in the tunnel. After a short stay in hospital, he returned to his Bedouin village on Wednesday, where he received a hero's welcome.
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.
apnews.com / photo: un.org / gnews.cz-roz_07
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