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At least 10 Palestinians dozens of injured were killed in Israeli attack in occupied the West Bankwith the foreign minister of neighboring Jordan warning that the offensive could lead to West Coast to “explode”.
Invasion of the northern city Jenin wounded at least 40 people, Palestinian health officials said, in an operation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would be “extensive and significant”.
Palestinian media reported that there were several airstrikes on Tuesday as large numbers of soldiers entered the city and its refugee camp, backed by drones, helicopters and armored bulldozers. On Wednesday, the governor of Jenin said that Israeli forces had “bulldozed all the roads leading to the Jenin camp and leading to the Jenin government hospital.”
Palestinian media reported that as many as 200 people were trapped inside the government hospital, and videos were shared online showing what appeared to be Israeli military bulldozers building embankments around the hospital.
The attack comes days after the start of a ceasefire for the war Gazatriggered by a Hamas attack on October 7 that killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. IsraelThe retaliatory offensive inside Gaza killed 47,000 Palestinians, according to health ministry officials in the enclave.
The Israeli military said the large-scale operation was aimed at ensuring that militant groups “do not rearm within a few hundred meters of Israeli communities”.
“We must learn from October 7 and not allow terrorist groups to regroup and plan terrorist attacks a few hundred meters from us,” said international community spokesman LTC Nadav Shoshani, calling Jenin “one of the main hotspots of terror.”
Asked about recent events in the occupied West Bank, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the World Economic Forum in Davos that “maintaining the security of the West Bank” is a “top priority,” warning that doing otherwise could “destabilize the entire region.”
“I think keeping the West Bank safe, making sure the West Bank doesn’t blow up is something of the highest priority and what’s going on there is dangerous,” he added. “And I think the whole world needs to take a deep look at what’s going on, and again with the same vigor that we look at the ceasefire, we should also work to prevent an explosion in the West Bank.”
The spokesman of the Israeli army, Mr. Shoshani, declined to give a timeline for the length of the operation, but said they would likely operate in different areas of the West Bank, suggesting the operation could expand.
An unnamed security source told Israel’s Channel 14 on Wednesday that an Israeli military operation in the northern-occupied West Bank “could last for months.”
“What we did in Gaza, we will do to them; we will leave them in ruins,” the source added.
Mr Shoshani said: “The threat of terrorism, to ordinary civilians, from both organized terrorist networks and lone wolf attacks, remains a serious and immediate threat to our civilians. Hamas is also trying to fuel this coming terror [the West Bank] and encouraging those terrorist cells to enter [the West Bank] for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis. Iran has repeatedly tried to smuggle weapons and explosives [the West Bank].”
Mr Shoshani referred to the January 18 stabbing of a Palestinian from Tulkaram in Tel Aviv, an attack a few weeks ago when militants from Jenin killed three Israelis, including two elderly women near the settlement of Kedumim, and a December attack when an 83-year-old Palestinian militant from Tulkarama stabbed an old woman in Herzliya.
Palestinian media reported that during the operation in Jenin, a car carrying a Palestinian family was shot at. The Independent has asked the Israeli military about the alleged incident, but has yet to receive a response.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, dozens of masked men rampaged through two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank late Monday, throwing stones and burning cars and property, according to local Palestinian officials. The Red Crescent Emergency Service reported that 12 people were beaten and wounded. The Israeli army said the men threw stones at soldiers who arrived to disperse them and that an investigation had been launched.
Israeli forces have since carried out raids elsewhere in the West Bank that the military said were in response to the throwing of firebombs at Israeli vehicles. Several suspects are said to have been taken into custody for questioning, and a video circulating online appears to show dozens marching through the streets.
Jalal Bashir, chairman of Jinsafut’s village council, said three houses, a nursery and a carpentry shop were attacked. “The settlers were masked and had incendiary materials,” Bashir said. “Their numbers were large and unprecedented.”
Louay Tayem, head of the local council in Al-Funduq, said dozens of men shot, threw stones, set fire to cars and attacked homes and shops, the Associated Press reported.
Burned-out car shells were on the side of the road in Jinsafutu on Tuesday, and residents were seen inspecting the damage at a burnt warehouse.
Also speaking in Davos, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterre said the Gaza ceasefire had so far been successful in allowing aid to the enclave, but he had a warning about any further future action.
“There is a possibility that Israel feels emboldened by the military successes to think that this is the moment to annex the West Bank and keep Gaza in a kind of limbo situation,” he said.
“That would be a complete violation of international law … and would mean that there would never be peace in the Middle East.”