Multiple Palestinians killed as Israel launches major operation

CCN - Israel launched a major military operation in multiple areas of the northern occupied West Bank early Wednesday, with Palestinian health authorities saying at least nine people have been killed.

The Israeli military confirmed Wednesday it had launched a large counter-terror operation overnight with the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarem in the West Bank.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has been operating since tonight with great force in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tul Karm to thwart Islamic-Iranian terror infrastructures installed there,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for more information.

Early indications show a significant, combined Israeli operation, involving drones and bulldozers, military and security forces, four battalions of the Israel Border Police, and an elite unit of undercover troops. Video obtained by CNN showed bulldozers tearing up a street in a built up area of Tulkarem, and also moving in convoy through Jenin.

Additional footage released by Israel’s military showed what it said was a strike on a militant operations room in Nur Shams, a refugee camp near Tulkarem.

Katz accused Iran of operating in the West Bank by “funding and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons via Jordan.”

“We must address this threat just like we’re handling the terror infrastructure in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any step necessary. This is a war just like any other [war], and we must win it,” he wrote.

Palestinian deaths were reported in the towns of Tubas and Jenin, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

At least two of those killed in Jenin were as a result of Israeli military fire and three others were killed in a drone strike on a vehicle on the outskirts of Jenin, according to the PRCS. It added that one person was critically injured in the strike.

Earlier, a joint total from the PRCS and the ministry put the death toll at at least 10.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Israeli forces had blocked roads leading to the government hospital in Jenin and had it surrounded.

“Dozens of patients are currently being treated in government, private, and charitable hospitals in Jenin, and that any invasion of them is a direct threat to their lives and the lives of medical staff,” the ministry of health said.

The Islamic Jihad militant group condemned the Israeli military’s “comprehensive aggression” on areas of the occupied West Bank, referring to it an “open and undeclared war.”

In a separate statement, the group’s military wing the Al-Quds Brigades, said it targeted and shot down an Israeli drone near Jenin. The group said its fighters are targeting Israeli forces with “heavy volleys of direct bullets.”

CNN has not been able to verify the claim by Al-Quds Brigade.

Meanwhile, Hamas called for a “general mobilization… against the occupation and its settlers everywhere on our occupied land.” The group said the Israeli operation was “extensive” and accused the Israeli military of “deliberate destruction of infrastructure using large military forces accompanied by aerial bombardment from drones and warplanes.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since seizing the territory from Jordanian military occupation in 1967. In the decades since, Israel has expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank, considered illegal under international law, despite signing a series of peace agreements with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

Israel’s current war against Hamas in Gaza, which began after the October 7 attacks, has increasingly spilled over into the West Bank with Israeli military raids, settler attacks and clashes killing hundreds of Palestinians.