JENIN: Israel launched a large-scale military operation on Wednesday in four cities of the occupied West Bank, where the army claimed it killed nine Palestinian ‘fighters’, while the nearly 11-month Gaza conflict showed no signs of abating.

Violence has also surged in the West Bank in Gaza and has left more than 40,000 people dead, according to Gaza health ministry. It has also caused widespread destruction, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

In the West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli military launched attack on four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem.

Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin.

Operation launched in Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem; Mahmud Abbas cuts short his visit to Saudi Arabia

By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, with soldiers firing at the camps.

Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed nine people and wounded 15 others in the raids, revising its previous toll of 10 dead.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to “follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank”, Palestinian official media said.

The Israeli army said it had killed nine Palestinian “terrorists”, with no casualties so far on its side.

Soldiers encountered explosives and were exchanging fire with militants, said army spokesman Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how many were involved or how long the operation would last.

The operation, he added, was not “extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special”.

Israeli FM’s claim

Foreign Minster Israel Katz had a different take, however, saying the military was “operating in full force since last night” in a bid to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.

In a post on X, he accused Iran, Israel’s main foe in the region, of seeking to “establish an eastern front against Israel” based on the “model” for Gaza and Lebanon, where it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively.

“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.

While Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.

In recent weeks, Israel’s West Bank operations have focused on the territory’s north, where what Israel claims armed groups are particularly active.

Patients flee hospital

Last week, the Israeli army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian militant in Lebanon, accusing him of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamic movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, issued a statement early on Wednesday denouncing an “open war” by Israel.

“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,” the statement said.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2024