Situation at a glance: Israel begins major military operation in the West Bank

Shortly after the ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip, Israel launched a major military operation against Palestinian militants in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, ten people were killed and at least 40 injured in the operation in the city of Jenin. The military operation, the latest in a series of raids by the Israeli army in the West Bank in recent months, is aimed at “fighting terrorism” and will be “extensive and significant,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to media reports, ground troops and special forces entered Jenin, which is considered a stronghold of radical Palestinians. There were also drone attacks. Palestinian Authority security forces, which had been deployed against militants for several weeks, withdrew, according to Palestinian sources.

The action by Israeli forces in Jenin comes at a time when the already tense situation in the West Bank has become dramatically worse amid a rise in Palestinian militants and increasing violence by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians.

On Monday, a day after a ceasefire came into force in the Gaza war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas, Israel’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said that in the coming days we must be prepared for extensive anti-terror operations in the West Bank “in order to forestall the terrorists and to arrest them before they reach our civilians”.

A day later, Halevi announced his resignation as army chief, citing, among other things, the military’s failure to protect Israel from the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in around 1,200 deaths. The massacre sparked the Gaza war. Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and has been weakened by the Israeli army during the war, has increased its efforts to arm radical Palestinians in the West Bank in order to open another front against Israel, analysts told the New York Times.

Netanyahu: Take action against the “Iranian axis”.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said about the operation in Jenin that action would be taken wherever the “Iranian axis” reached. In addition to Hamas, Iran’s allies include Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is also militarily weakened by Israel, and the Houthi militia in Yemen.

Since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank has risen to 828, according to Palestinian information. The situation is fueled by the violence of radical Jewish settlers.

Israeli settlers attack villages

When dozens of Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli prisons in exchange for three Hamas hostages after the ceasefire in Gaza came into force and many of them returned to the West Bank, there were repeated attacks on Palestinian villages by radical Israeli settlers. According to Israeli media reports, the hooded settlers set fire to buildings and vehicles in the villages.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel conquered, among other things, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Around half a million Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank among three million Palestinians. Including East Jerusalem there are even 700,000 settlers. In 2016, the UN Security Council described the settlements as a violation of international law and called on Israel to stop all settlement activities in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas calls for “general mobilization.”

However, one day after the start of the Gaza ceasefire, US President Donald Trump, who had only recently been sworn in, lifted sanctions against radical settlers in the West Bank that the government of his predecessor Joe Biden had imposed. Among other things, assets in the USA were blocked. US citizens and generally all people in the US were also prohibited from doing business with sanctioned organizations and individuals. The European Union had also imposed sanctions against radical settlers.

After Trump lifted sanctions, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Ramallah expressed fears that there could now be more violence by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Hamas called on the population for “general mobilization” and confrontations with the Israeli security forces and settlers. In view of the Israeli military operation in Jenin, the Islamic Jihad organization also called on the residents of the West Bank to “resist this criminal operation by all means.”

Injured in knife attack in Tel Aviv

Meanwhile, four people were injured in a knife attack in the Israeli coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv in the evening, according to the Israeli rescue service. According to media reports, the perpetrator was shot by a passerby. The police spoke of a terrorist attack. According to the Times of Israel, the man from Morocco, who had a permanent residence permit in the USA, entered Israel as a tourist on Saturday. Hamas praised him as a martyr and portrayed his actions as a response to the Israeli military operation in Jenin.

As the newspaper further reported that night, border police officers shot three Palestinians who they said had thrown stones at them in a refugee camp near Jerusalem. According to police, dozens of Palestinians began rioting during an operation by security forces. The police officers believed their lives were in danger and opened fire.