Israel launches ‘significant’ military operation in West Bank, at least 9 Palestinians killed

REUTERS | Published January 22, 2025
JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, Jan 21 (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”.
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The 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 Iranian-backed militants.

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“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.
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The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza.
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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, a major centre of armed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.
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Hamas, based in Gaza, has over recent years expanded its reach in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the rival Fatah faction, exercises limited governance. On Tuesday, Hamas called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.
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As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.
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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.
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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.
Item 1 of 6 An Israeli military vehicle uses a laser, on the day of an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

PROTECTING SETTLERS

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”.
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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.
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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.
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“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 neighbours’ buildings and cars over there. No one can do anything.”
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The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.
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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”.
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“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.
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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.
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SOURCE: www.reuters.com

RELATED: PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp

Truce comes after rupture said caused by IDF’s resumption of airstrikes in area; members of battalion, affiliated with terror groups, to surrender arms to Ramallah after 6-week op

Palestinian Authority security officers launch smoke grenades during clashes with Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin, December 16, 2024. (Nasser Ishtayeh/ Flash90)
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL | Published January 22, 2025

The Palestinian Authority has reached an agreement with the Jenin Battalion that will end a six-week standoff in the northern West Bank city and adjacent refugee camp, a Palestinian official confirmed to The Times of Israel on Friday.

The West Bank-based PA has been targeting the so-called Jenin Battalion, made up of operatives affiliated with terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a bid to show incoming US President Donald Trump that Ramallah can maintain order in the West Bank, amid its push to take the reigns of Gaza from Hamas after the war there.

According to the official, the truce was reached Friday evening, a day after negotiations resumed following a rupture earlier this week, said to have been caused by Israel’s resumption of airstrikes on Jenin.

The truce deal requires specific members of the Jenin Battalion to hand over their weapons and allows the PA to operate freely in the refugee camp, the official said.

PA vehicles were already filmed entering the refugee camp on Friday evening with bomb-squad units to detonate explosives that the Jenin Battalion placed throughout the area to harm Israeli and PA forces. Palestinian media reported that as PA vehicles entered the camp, dozens of people gathered to chant slogans in favor of the armed groups.

Ramallah has accused Iran of funding and arming the Jenin Battalion and other armed factions throughout the West Bank. The armed groups have gained significant prominence in the northern West Bank over the past several years.

 

The PA, established under the 1993 Oslo Accords, has a relatively strong presence in southern and central West Bank cities, but has struggled to exert authority over the territory’s north, especially refugee camps in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem.

Arabic media has reported 15 Palestinians killed in the PA operation in Jenin, including six members of the PA security forces, eight civilians, and one terror suspect, and PA forces have arrested a handful of Jenin Battalion members.

Among those killed was a journalist whose family said she was struck by a PA sniper despite no fighting taking place in her vicinity.

The counterterrorism operation has emboldened the view of the PA’s Palestinian critics that Ramallah was acting on behalf of Israel. Amid the operation, the PA has cracked down on dissent, including by shutting down the West Bank offices of Qatari-owned news outlet Al Jazeera for its “interference in Palestinian affairs.”

PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp

A member of the Palestinian Authority security forces stands at a traffic circle in the Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, December 29, 2024. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP)

Early on in the operation, the Jenin Battalion managed to steal a pair of vehicles belonging to the PA security forces, who subsequently intensified the raid of the refugee camp.

The IDF, which also staged large-scale counterterrorism operations in the northern West Bank in recent months, has said that it was bolstering the PA forces to help them in the fight against the Jenin Battalion. The military paused its airstrikes on Jenin as PA forces operated there, but ended that policy this week with a pair of airstrikes that killed a dozen people, including civilians, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Two Palestinian officials have told The Times of Israel that the airstrikes had caused a rupture in the ongoing truce talks between the PA and the Jenin Battalion.

One of the officials speculated that the airstrikes were pushed by far-right elements in the military and government who wanted to scuttle the deal and see the PA fail in its effort.

Israel has accused the Authority of inciting terrorism in its education system and by paying stipends to families of Palestinians detained for violent crimes.

PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp

Mourners carry the body of 19-year-old Rahbi Shalabi, who was killed during clashes between Palestinian Authority security forces and local terror groups a day earlier, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin on December 10, 2024. (Zain Jaafar/AFP)

The West Bank has seen a sharp rise in violence since the Gaza war was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

Since then, the IDF has detained some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas. According to the PA health ministry, more than 835 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time.

The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks. During the same period, 46 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.

 

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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com

 

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