Israel launches deadly operation in West Bank, nine Palestinians killed

Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin.

By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, AFP photographers said, with soldiers firing at the camps from which gunfire and explosions were heard.

Israeli bulldozers dug up the asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed at least 10 people -- two in Jenin, four in a nearby village and another four in the refugee camp near Tubas. Fifteen others were wounded.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to "follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank," Palestinian official media said.

The Israeli army said it had killed nine Palestinian "terrorists" and that so far there were no casualties on its side.

Soldiers encountered explosives and were exchanging fire with militants, said army spokesman, Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how many were involved or how long the operation would last.

The operation, he added, was not "extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special".

'This is war'

Foreign Minster Israel Katz had a different take, however, saying the military was "operating in full force since last night" in a bid to "dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure".

In a post on X, he accused Iran, Israel's main foe in the region, of seeking to "establish an eastern front against Israel" based on the "model" for Gaza and Lebanon, where it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively.

"We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures," he said.

"This is a war, and we must win it."

Since Hamas's October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

During the same period, at least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli officials.

But while Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for them to be carried out in multiple cities simultaneously.

In recent weeks, Israeli operations in the West Bank have focused on the north of the territory, where armed groups fighting against Israel are particularly active.

Patients flee hospital

Last week, the army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian militant in Lebanon, accusing him of "directing attacks and smuggling weapons" to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the north of the West Bank, issued a statement early Wednesday denouncing an "open war" by Israel.

"With this aggression, which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank," the statement said.

Hamas, whose popularity has soared in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, late Tuesday reiterated its call for Palestinians in the territory to "rise up".

Its statement came in response to comments by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said this week he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

Ben Gvir, a settler himself, has openly called for the annexation of the West Bank.

In Gaza, families in distress continued to move according to the Israeli army's evacuation orders.

One of the latest targeted the area around Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, from which "nearly 650 patients have fled", Doctors Without Borders said.

The medical charity has, instead, "anticipated the opening of a field hospital now that the Al-Aqsa hospital was "almost totally empty".

Gaza's civil defence agency reported at least 12 dead, including at least one child and a woman, in new Israeli strikes.

Hamas's October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,534 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.