The Israeli army has said it killed nine Palestinian militants during an ongoing operation in the occupied West Bank which was launched overnight, AFP reports.

The Israeli forces “began a counterterrorism operation in Jenin and Tulkarem” overnight, the army said in a statement.

It specified that three “terrorists” were killed “in an aerial strike” in Jenin, two others “eliminated” in Jenin and Tulkarem and four more “eliminated” in “an aerial counterterrorism operation in the area of Faraa” in the Jordan Valley.

“At the moment, there are no injured soldiers on our side,” military spokesman Nadav Shoshani told reporters.

“We have met explosives already in the first hours, and we have met real-time fire exchanged with terrorists engaging in battle.” He declined to say how long the operation would last or how many troops were involved. It was targeting “a mixture of terror groups and terror cells”, Shoshani said.

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