JENIN/GAZA: The Zionist entity launched a large-scale military operation Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, where the army said it killed nine Palestinians, while the nearly 11-month Gaza war showed no signs of abating. Violence has surged in the West Bank amid the Gaza war that has killed at least 40,534 people, mostly women and children. It has also caused widespread destruction, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
In the West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the Zionist military launched a series of coordinated raids across four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem. Columns of Zionist armored 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.
Zionist bulldozers dug up the asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Zionist 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.
The Palestinian health ministry said troops had surrounded Jenin’s main hospital, blocking off access with earth mounds - a measure the military said was intended to stop fighters seeking refuge. Masoud Naaja, the father of two young men killed in a Zionist strike in the town of Far’a near Tubas in the Jordan Valley, said he was giving water to some men who asked for a drink when he was wounded. "In seconds, very fast, we felt like something came down on us from the sky and there was an explosion,” he said. "When I put my hand on my chest, it was full of shrapnel and blood.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to "follow up on the latest developments in light of the (Zionist) aggression on the northern West Bank,” Palestinian official media said. 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, the Zionist entity’s main foe in the region, of seeking to "establish an eastern front against (the Zionist entity)” 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 Oct 7, Zionist troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures. But while Zionist military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by the Zionist entity since 1967, it is rare for them to be carried out in multiple cities simultaneously. In recent weeks, Zionist operations in the West Bank have focused on the north of the territory, where armed groups fighting against the Zionist entity are particularly active.
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 the Zionist entity. "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 Zionist 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 Zionist 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 defense agency reported at least 12 dead, including at least one child and a woman, in new Zionist strikes.
The United States on Wednesday announced new sanctions on Zionist settlers in the West Bank over violence against Palestinians, urging its ally the Zionist entity to bring greater accountability. "Extremist settler violence in the West Bank causes intense human suffering, harms (the Zionist entity’s) security and undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
"It is critical that the government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the West Bank,” he said. The latest sanction targets included Hashomer Yosh, a Zionist group that has supported the unauthorized settler outpost of Meitarim Farm in the south Hebron Hills. Volunteers from the group earlier this year fenced off a village whose 250 Palestinian residents had all been forced to leave, the State Department said.
The State Department also imposed sanctions against Yitzhak Levi Filant, who was accused of leading armed settlers in setting up roadblocks and patrols with a goal of attacking Palestinians. The US has repeatedly voiced concern to Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about settler violence and about the expansion of settlements championed by far-right members of his government.
US sanctions generally bar targets from the US financial system, leading Zionist banks to restrict dealings with sanctioned individuals for fear of repercussions. But the Biden administration has held off on imposing sanctions on government ministers leading the settlement policy. – Agencies