By James Mackenzie and Ali Sawafta
JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH (Reuters) – Israeli security forces backed by helicopters attacked the volatile West Bank town of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale military operation and significant.
The action, launched a day after US President Donald Trump said he was lifting sanctions against ultranationalist Israeli settlers who have attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against Israel-backed militants. Iran.
“We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its weapons – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses to refer to the occupied West Bank.
The arrival in Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple large-scale raids and incursions in recent years, comes just two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and highlights the threat of further violence in West Bank.
The army said soldiers, police and intelligence services had launched an anti-terrorism operation in Jenin. This follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in the autonomous areas of the West Bank to reassert control of the adjacent refugee camp, a major center of armed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both supported by Iran.
Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its influence in the West Bank in recent years, has called on Palestinians in the territory to step up fighting against Israel.
As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in cellphone footage shared on social media.
Palestinian health services said at least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded at the start of the Israeli raid, a week after an Israeli airstrike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and injured others. dozens of others.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in regular Israeli raids.
PROTECT SETTLERS
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is responsible for much of Israel’s West Bank policy, said the operation was the start of a “strong and continuing campaign” against militant groups “for the protection of colonies and settlers.
Smotrich previously welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration to expand settlements.
About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, lands captured by Israel in 1967. Most countries consider Israeli settlements on territory seized during the war illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the country.
The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in certain territories in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.
In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation, Palestinians across the West Bank said numerous roadblocks had been set up across the territory, where violence has resurfaced since the start of the Gaza war.
On Monday evening, gangs of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of al-Funduq, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.
The army said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some masked.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said aimed to “dismember the West Bank.”
“We call on the new US administration to intervene to put an end to these crimes and to Israeli policies that will bring peace and security to no one,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office said in a statement.