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An Israeli military vehicle uses a laser during a raid in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. /Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a "large-scale and significant military operation."
Palestinian health services said at least nine Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded in the Israeli raid, which continued well into the night. A week earlier, an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.
The IDF has confirmed that Israeli security forces 'hit over 10 terrorists'. "Additionally, aerial strikes on terror infrastructure sites were conducted, and numerous explosives planted on the routes by the terrorists were dismantled," the statement read.
The latest action, launched a day after U.S. President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against what he called Iranian-backed militants.
"We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.
Israel's move into Jenin, where its army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, came only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza.
The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp.
Hamas, based in Gaza, has over recent years expanded its reach in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority (PA), dominated by the rival Fatah faction, exercises limited governance. On Tuesday, Hamas called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel – and on Wednesday, it condemned "the participation of the PA's security forces in the occupation's attack on Jenin camp."
The battle for Jenin
The aftershocks of the Gaza war have stoked tensions in the West Bank, with Jewish settlers attacking Palestinians in addition to the clashes between PA security forces and militant fighters.
The PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, was set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords and given limited authority in the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians hope for an independent state. It was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in a 2007 civil war.
Israel says it believes the PA should have no role in Gaza after the war ends there, but most Western and Arab countries say Gaza must be run by Palestinians and they expect a role for the PA.
In the past few weeks, heavily armed Palestinian security forces in armored personnel carriers have set up checkpoints around Jenin and its refugee camp, where there have been repeated protests by residents against the operation.
The city and refugee camp have long been a center of Palestinian militancy, where fighters have clashed with Israeli forces mounting large-scale raids that left trails of smashed roads and infrastructure – but PA security forces have been struggling to win the trust of its residents.
Barricades in Jenin's refugee camp. /Raneen Sawafta/Reuters
PA officials say the Authority wants to prevent Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants gaining the upper hand in Jenin and the wider West Bank, and establishing a rule similar to that of Hamas in Gaza which might antagonize Israel.
The PA also hopes that by proving itself in the West Bank, it will boost its chances of having a role in post-war Gaza, political analysts say.
But the PA security forces have faced strong opposition in Jenin, and have fought clashes with militant fighters in the small city in the north of the West Bank. Clashes have also broken out in other West Bank cities including Tubas in the Jordan Valley and Tulkarm in the north.
Some Jenin residents complain about the price they are paying as the PA, which some Palestinians accuse of being corrupt and ineffective, tries to assert its authority in Jenin.
The PA security forces have made large numbers of arrests in Jenin refugee camp and more than a dozen people have been killed in clashes in the city and camp including six PA security officers and one gunman, officials say.
On Wednesday, Hamas criticized the PA, saying "The participation of the PA's security forces in the occupation's attack on Jenin camp is a crime against our people and a denial of the blood of the martyrs... We condemn in the strongest terms the continued shedding of Palestinian blood at the hands of the PA's security forces in the West Bank."
Hardline pro-settlers
Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids.
Hardline pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Israeli policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a "strong and ongoing campaign" against militant groups "for the protection of settlements and settlers".
Earlier, Smotrich welcomed Trump's decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians. He said he looked forward to cooperating with the new U.S. administration in expanding settlements, which most countries consider to be in violation of international law.
In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation in Jenin, Palestinians in the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza.
Late on Monday, bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, around the village of al-Funduq, near Qalqilya, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.
"There was a carpenter's shop here where I have been working for the past eight years," said Abdulmalek Farajallah, who said more than 200 settlers had taken part in the attack. "They burned it down, and our neighbors' buildings and cars over there. No one can do anything."
The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said were aimed at "dismembering the West Bank".
"We call on the new American administration to intervene to stop these crimes and Israeli policies that will not bring peace and security to anyone," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office said in a statement.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel's settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.