Israel's military executed a large-scale raid in the West Bank this week, resulting in the death of several Palestinians, amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Palestinian officials said that a large military operation in the West Bank resulted in Israeli military forces killing nine Palestinian individuals as they sought to seal off the city of Jenin.
Over the past several months, Israel has continued to carry out attacks in the West Bank amid the ongoing war with Hamas militants. The war in Gaza began after Hamas launched an attack against Israel last October, killing 1,250 people. Earlier this month, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that the Palestinian death toll had surpassed 40,000 since the start of the war.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said that "large forces" carried out a raid in Jenin, which is widely seen as a militia stronghold during the ongoing war, as well as the city of Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp.
According to Shoshani, the nine who died in the raid were all militants, which included three fatalities from an airstrike in Tulkarem. Four additional fatalities were reported in Al-Faraa, after Israel launched an airstrike on the refugee camp.
Five other suspected militants were arrested following the raid in the West Bank, Shoshani said, who also noted that the recent operation is part of a larger scale effort to prevent attacks against Israelis.
Palestinian militant groups reported exchanging fire with Israeli troops. Jenin's governor, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had encircled the city, blocking access to hospitals, restricting entry and exit points, and tearing up infrastructure within the refugee camp.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank reported that Israeli forces had blocked roads to a hospital with dirt barriers and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin. Shoshani stated that the measures were intended to prevent militants from using hospitals as shelters.
A reporter for The Associated Press (AP), was in the area when the raids were carried out and said that Israeli military vehicles blocked all the entrances to the Al-Faraa camp. Military jeeps and bulldozers rolled into the camp as soldiers patrolled its narrow alleyways on foot. Water spilled onto the damaged streets from homes where tanks and pipes had been hit in the fighting, while gunfire echoed every few minutes, the AP reporter said.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz spoke about the raids in the West Bank saying "the IDF is working intensively from tonight in the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps to thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructures that have been established there."
"Iran is working to establish an eastern terrorist front against Israel in the West Bank, according to the Gaza and Lebanon model, by financing and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons from Jordan," Katz said. "We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required. This is a war for everything and we must win it."
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
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