The Israeli military announced Sunday that it is expanding operations in the occupied West Bank, deploying a tank division in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin for the first time since the end of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2005.
“IDF (military), Shin Bet (security agency), and border police forces continue their … operation in northern Samaria (West Bank) and are expanding offensive activities in the area,” a military statement said, adding that “a tank division will operate in Jenin as part of the offensive effort.”
The announcement comes as Israel’s defense minister said troops would remain “for the coming year” in parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, where Israel has staged a weekslong offensive, as Israel says it was deepening its crackdown.
Israel launched a broad offensive on the northern West Bank on Jan. 21 – two days after the cease-fire that paused its genocidal war on Gaza – and then expanded it to include other nearby areas.
Israel says it is determined to stamp out militancy in the territory but Palestinians view such raids as part of an effort to cement Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under military rule. The raids have been deadly and caused destruction to urban areas and displaced tens of thousands.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to prepare to remain in some of the West Bank’s refugee camps, from where he said some 40,000 Palestinians had fled – a figure confirmed by the United Nations – leaving the areas “emptied of residents.”
He said in a statement he had ordered the military to “prepare for an extended stay in the camps that were cleared for the coming year and to not allow the return of residents or for … to grow again.”
The military said it was expanding the raid in the West Bank to other areas and, in a rare move, was sending tanks to Jenin, long a bastion of resistance against Israeli occupation.
Under interim peace agreements from the early 1990s, Israel maintains control over large parts of the West Bank while the Palestinian Authority administers other areas.
Israel regularly sends troops into Palestinian zones but it typically withdraws them once forces complete their missions.
The U.N. says the current operation is the longest since the early 2000s when Israel regularly raided the West Bank in response to a Palestinian uprising.
Violence has surged in the West Bank throughout Israel’s genocidal Gaza war. Israel has carried out repeated raids during that time but with fighting in Gaza and Lebanon on hold, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under pressure from his far-right governing partners to crack down on the occupied West Bank.
More than 800 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel alleges most of those were resistance members but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions as well as people not involved in confrontations have also been killed. In the most recent operation, a pregnant Palestinian woman was killed.
Jewish settlers have also carried out repeated rampages throughout Palestinian areas in the territory. There has also been a spike in Palestinian attacks emanating from the West Bank and late Thursday, blasts rocked three empty parked buses in Israel, what police are viewing as a suspected attack.
The raid’s intensification comes at a sensitive time, as the truce between Israel and Hamas holds yet remains tenuous. Israel said it was delaying the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners until it gets assurances that Hamas stops what Israel claims are “humiliating” handovers of hostages being freed.
The sides do not yet appear to have begun negotiations on extending the cease-fire and its collapse could lead to renewed fighting in war-torn Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future independent state.
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