Israel launches a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank, killing 9 Palestinians

Israel launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, with its forces killing at least nine Palestinians and sealing off the volatile city of Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.

Israel has been conducting almost daily raids throughout the West Bank since the Hamas attack from Gaza on October 7, which sparked the war there.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said “large forces” had entered the volatile city of Jenin, which has long been a hotbed of terror, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp in the northern West Bank, which dates back to the 1948 Middle East war.

He said the nine dead were all terrorists, three of whom were killed in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four others in an airstrike in Al-Faraa.

He said five more suspected terrorists had been arrested and the raids were the first phase of an even larger operation aimed at preventing attacks on Israeli civilians.

Palestinian terror groups said they exchanged fire with the Israeli military. Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had surrounded the city, blocked entrances and exits and access to hospitals, and destroyed the camp's infrastructure.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israeli forces had blocked access roads to a hospital with earthen ramparts and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin. Shoshani said the military was trying to prevent terrorists from seeking shelter in hospitals.

An Associated Press reporter saw army vehicles blocking all entrances to the Al-Faraa camp. Military jeeps and bulldozers entered the camp and soldiers patrolled the alleys on foot.

Water seeped into the destroyed streets from houses where tanks and pipes had been damaged by fighting. Shots rang out every few minutes.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz drew comparisons with Gaza and called for similar measures in the West Bank.

“We must deal with the threat in the same way we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and all necessary steps. This is a war in every sense and we must win it,” he wrote on Platform X.

Shoshani said there were no plans to evacuate civilians.

Hamas called on Palestinians in the West Bank to revolt and said the attacks were part of a larger plan to expand the war in Gaza, blaming US support for Israel for the escalation.

The terrorist group called on the security forces of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which cooperates with Israel, to “join the holy struggle of our people.”

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the raids as a “serious escalation” and called on the United States to intervene, according to the official Palestinian news agency.

According to the Palestinian Ministry, at least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the Gaza war began more than 10 months ago. Most died in such attacks, which often lead to shootouts with terrorists.

Israel says the operations are necessary to crush Hamas and other terrorist groups and prevent attacks on Israelis, which have also increased since the war began.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the bodies of seven people were taken to a hospital in Tubas, another West Bank city, and two others to a hospital in Jenin.

The ministry identified the two people killed in Jenin as Qassam Jabarin, 25, and Asem Balout, 39.

In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for a future state.

Israel has built numerous settlements throughout the West Bank, home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers.

They hold Israeli citizenship, while the three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule and the Palestinian Authority exercises only limited control over the population centers.

The war in Gaza broke out on October 7, when Hamas-led terrorists entered southern Israel and wreaked havoc in army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250.

The terrorists still hold about 110 hostages, about a third of whom are believed dead, after most of the rest were released under a ceasefire in November.

Israel responded with an offensive in which, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 40,000 Palestinians were killed. It is not stated how many of them were terrorists.

About 90 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip has had to leave their homes, often multiple times. Israeli bombings and ground operations have caused enormous destruction.

At least 16 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip overnight and through Wednesday, including five women and three children.

Most of the attacks occurred in or near the southern city of Khan Younis, which has been under heavy shelling over the past two months. Associated Press reporters at two hospitals confirmed the number of casualties.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying for months to broker a ceasefire that would lead to the release of the remaining hostages.

But the talks repeatedly stalled as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “total victory” over Hamas and the terror group demanded a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal from the area.

After days of talks in Egypt there were no signs of a breakthrough, so negotiations will move to Qatar this week.