The attacks, which targeted the cities of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas, have resulted in the deaths of at least 17 people. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it was carrying out a “counterterrorism operation,” despite the Israeli-occupied West Bank not being under the control of Hamas. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the operation was staged to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel, CNN reported. “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,” he wrote on social media. “This is a war for all terms and purposes and we must win it.” The IDF’s international spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, said in a briefing that Israel had identified “a systematic strategy in Iran” of smuggling weapons and explosives into the West Bank, according to CNN. “Specifically, about Jenin and Tulkarm, we’ve seen over 150 shooting and explosive attacks originated from these areas alone over the past year,” Shoshani said.Israel’s military has launched its largest operation in the occupied West Bank since 2002, conducting raids and airstrikes across the region.
The new round of attacks drew fierce backlash online.
"Israel knows it can commit war crimes with impunity. That is why it has launched its largest assault on the West Bank since 2002," Jeremy Corbyn, British former Labour leader, wrote in a post on X. "We are witnessing the total erasure of Palestine - and our government is shamefully complicit. End all arms sales to Israel, now." Israel knows it can commit war crimes with impunity.
That is why it has launched its largest assault on the West Bank since 2002.
We are witnessing the total erasure of Palestine - and our government is shamefully complicit.
End all arms sales to Israel, now.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 29, 2024
The West Bank has been a flashpoint for violence over the past two decades, with Israeli settlers, often backed by the IDF, frequently targeting Palestinians.
In the wake of Israel’s response to last year’s deadly attack by Hamas, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has escalated sharply. Since Oct. 7, more than 650 Palestinians, including 150 children, have been killed by the IDF and settlers.
Amid the latest military operations in the West Bank, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an “immediate cessation” of Israeli military operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The latest “dangerous developments” are “fueling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority,” Guterres said in a statement.
He also said that the Israeli military should comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law and urged Israeli officials to “protect civilians and ensure their safety [and] to exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable.”
Local residents said that during yesterday’s incursion Israeli forces raided an ambulance station, holding paramedics outside, and forcing medical teams to leave the station, lining them up against a wall as they searched the facility.
"The number of military vehicles storming Jenin is very large,” Shatha Sabagh, a Jenin camp resident, told Middle East Eye (MEE). "The three main hospitals are besieged and all the streets leading to the city are closed with dirt barriers. We have not witnessed an incursion this extensive for a long time, and it seems that it will continue for several days."
Khaled Sobh, from Far'a camp, described a similar scene there.
"The situation in the camp is catastrophic and the incursion is the largest it has ever seen," he told MEE. "Ambulances are prohibited from moving. The wounded were smuggled to hospitals because of all these closures."
