CNN
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Israel’s military is using lessons from the Gaza war in its new West Bank operation to ensure “that terrorism does not return,” according to Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Katz said Operation “Iron Wall” in the Jenin refugee camp would be a change in the army’s security posture in the occupied West Bank.
“A powerful operation to eliminate terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the camp, to ensure that terrorists do not return to the camp after the operation is over – the method of repeated raids in Gaza,” he said. First lesson from the car”.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the launch of a “massive military operation” in Jenin – just two days after the Gaza ceasefire came into effect.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli warplanes struck Jenin and Israeli forces, including sharpshooters and armored vehicles, were surrounding the city’s refugee camp and preventing ambulances from entering.
Katz said Israel will not allow Iran or any armed group to threaten Israeli citizens. Israeli officials have previously accused Iran of supporting militant factions in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin refugee camp.
“We will not allow the Iranian octopus or radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of settlers and establish a terrorist front east of the State of Israel,” Katz said.
More than 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war, and is now home to 3.3 million Palestinians. Jewish settlement there is considered illegal under international law.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that the Israeli security agency, known as the Shin Bet, along with the Israel Border Police, had “killed more than 10 terrorists” in the Jenin operation and ” Airstrikes were carried out on terrorist infrastructure sites, while several roadside bombs planted by terrorists were defused.
“Israeli security forces are continuing the operation,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said nine people, aged between 16 and 57, had been killed. In addition, a 29-year-old man was killed in Tank town in Jenin district, the ministry said.
Video obtained by CNN shows Israeli military bulldozers digging up the road outside Jenin’s public hospital Tuesday evening, leaving piles of debris in front of the driveway until morning. The hospital is near the entrance to the refugee camp.
Jenin Hospital director Dr. Wisam Bakr told CNN on Wednesday that the facility was “under complete siege by the Israeli army.”
“Since yesterday, no one can enter or stay in the hospital. Yesterday, five medical staff were injured by Israeli army fire,” Bakr said. “Roads outside the hospital have been destroyed by Israeli army bulldozers. No ambulance is able to reach the hospital.”
Efforts by Palestinian security forces over the past month to dislodge the militants, who have been described as “illegals,” have largely failed.
Around 900 military checkpoints and gates have been set up across the West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to a statement from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a group affiliated with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry sealed off all entrances to Palestinian governorates, cities, towns and refugee camps on Tuesday, accusing Israel of “collective punishment” against West Bank residents.
It said it considered the operation in Jenin “part of Israel’s official plan to stabilize the occupation, enforce Israeli law, and gradually annex the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem.”
Some right-wing ministers in Israel have called for the annexation of parts or all of the West Bank, a view supported by some of US President Donald Trump’s nominees for office. In November, Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned as Israel’s national security minister last week over the Gaza deal, said it was time to exercise Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
