Israel launches large-scale counter-terrorism operation in West Bank

Amid the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ongoing clashes with Hezbollah on the northern border, Israel has launched an anti-terrorist operation in the West Bank, considered the largest and most important in recent months.

Although Hamas does not govern in the West Bank, the terrorist group has long used the territory as a base to organise and launch attacks against Israeli military and civilians using weapons smuggled in from Iran and taking advantage of the weakness and low popularity of the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas.

To carry out this operation, Israel - which has carried out numerous raids in the area since the beginning of the war in Gaza - has deployed hundreds of troops and has also mobilised the air force. According to the Israeli authorities, the anti-terrorist operation that has begun in Tulkarm, Jenin and other areas was launched in response to the attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on 18 August and the numerous terrorist attacks in recent months. 

In a joint statement with the Israel Police and the Shin Bet, the Israeli army announced the killing of five terrorists in the last few hours, including Muhammad Jaber, head of a terrorist organisation in Nur Shams, and Abu Shujaa, leader of a terrorist network that was involved in multiple attacks, including the murder of Israeli Amnon Mukhtar in Qalqilya last June.

Earlier, Israeli forces also eliminated at least 10 Hamas militants in Jenin. The terrorist group acknowledged the deaths, urging West Bank Palestinians to revolt, saying the raids are part of a wider plan to expand the war in Gaza.

The Islamist organisation also blamed the US for the escalation and called on Palestinian Authority security forces - which cooperate with Israel - to ‘join the sacred battle of the people’. 

The PA, for its part, has condemned the operation as a ‘serious escalation’ and called on the US to intervene. 

Israel claims that these operations are aimed at dismantling ‘Islamic-Iranian’ terrorist infrastructures in the West Bank, according to Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz. 

Jerusalem accuses the Islamic Republic of Iran of ‘destabilising Jordan and establishing an eastern terrorist front against Israel, modelled on Gaza and Lebanon, by financing and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons into Jordan and then into Judea and Samaria’.

As such, Katz says it is ‘a shared interest of Israel, Jordan and moderate states in the region to prevent the establishment of another Iran-Hamas-Palestine terrorist front’. 

To deal with this threat, the Israeli chief of diplomacy mentions ‘all necessary means’, including, in some cases of intense fighting, ‘the temporary evacuation of the population from one neighbourhood to another within the refugee camp to avoid civilian damage and to allow the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure established there’. 

Since the Gaza war began following the Hamas attack on 7 October, more than 660 Palestinians, including combatants and civilians, have been killed, according to Palestinian health ministry figures. In addition, at least 30 Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the same period, according to Israeli figures.