Israel’s military is using lessons from the Gaza war in its new West Bank operation to ensure “terrorism does not return,” according to Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Katz said operation “Iron Wall” in the Jenin refugee camp would be a shift in the military’s security approach in the occupied West Bank.
“A powerful operation to eliminate terrorists and terror infrastructure in the camp, ensuring that terrorism does not return to the camp after the operation is over – the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza,” he said.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of a “large-scale military operation” in Jenin – just two days after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli warplanes struck Jenin and that Israeli forces, including sharpshooters and armored vehicles, were surrounding the city’s refugee camp and stopping ambulances from entering.
Katz said Israel would not allow Iran or any armed groups to threaten Israeli citizens. Israeli officials have previously accused Iran of assisting militant factions in the West Bank, especially in the Jenin refugee camp.
“We will not allow the Iranian octopus or radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of the settlers and establish a terror front to the east of the State of Israel,” Katz said.
More than 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war and is now home to 3.3 million Palestinians. Jewish settlements there are considered illegal under international law.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that along with the Israeli Security Agency, known as Shin Bet, and Israel Border Police, it had “hit more than 10 terrorists” in the Jenin operation and conducted “aerial strikes on terror infrastructure sites,” while “numerous explosives planted on the routes by the terrorists were dismantled.”
“The Israeli security forces are continuing the operation,” it said.
On Tuesday the Palestinian Health Ministry said that nine people had been killed, ranging in age from 16 to 57 years old. In addition, a 29-year-old man was killed in the town of Ta’nek, in Jenin district, the Ministry said.
Hospital ‘under complete siege’
“No-one can enter or exist the hospital since yesterday. Yesterday, five medical staff were injured from Israeli military gunfire,” Bakr said. “The roads outside the hospital have been destroyed by the Israeli military bulldozers. No ambulances are able to arrive to the hospital.”
Efforts by the Palestinian security forces over the last month to dislodge militant elements described as “outlaws” have largely failed.
Nearly 900 military checkpoints and gates have been set up across the West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to a statement from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a group affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of “collective punishment” against residents of the West Bank on Tuesday by sealing off of all entrances to Palestinian governorates, cities, towns, and refugee camps.
It said it considered the operation in Jenin to be “part of an official Israeli plan aimed at consolidating the occupation, imposing Israeli law, and the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.”
Some right-wing ministers in Israel have called for the annexation of parts or all of the West Bank, a view that has the support of some of US President Donald Trump’s nominees for office. In November, Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned as Israel’s National Security Minister last week over the Gaza deal, said it was time to apply Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank.