Nine killed as Israel launches West Bank military operation

Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a, "large-scale and significant military operation".

The action, launched a day after US President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive.

"We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.

The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza.

The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major centre of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.

Hamas, based in Gaza, has over recent years expanded its reach in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority, dominated by the rival Fatah faction, exercises limited governance. On Tuesday, Hamas called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.

As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.

Palestinian health services said at least nine Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded in the Israeli raid, which continued well into the night. A week earlier, an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.

Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids.