 "Why is Israel conducting major military operation in West Bank amid Gaza ceasefire?")
After the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Gaza has fallen silent.
But now, Israel is turning its attention to the West Bank.
Israel has launched a major operation in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have fled the refugee camp in the city of Jenin.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
But what is happening? Why is Israel now focusing on the West Bank?
Let’s take a closer look:
What is happening?
According to BBC, Israel has been conducting the military operation in around Jenin for the past few days.
The operation is called “Iron Wall.”
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it killed two Palestinian militants who carried out a deadly attack on a bus in the West Bank earlier this month.
The two men barricaded themselves in a structure in the West Bank village of Burqin and exchanged fire with Israeli troops before they were killed overnight.
The army said a soldier was moderately wounded.
The military said Mohammed Nazzal and Katiba al-Shalabi were operatives with the Islamic Jihad militant group.
The Hamas militant group released a statement claiming the two men were members of its armed wing and praising the bus attack. Hamas and the smaller and more radical Islamic Jihad are allies that sometimes carry out attacks together.
The January 6 attack on the bus carrying Israelis killed three people and wounded six others.
According to BBC, the entrance to Jenin’s main hospital is currently in the hands of the Israeli Army.
The forces have also blocked the entrance of Jenin’s refugee camp and bulldozed the roads going into it.
Small groups of soldiers are watching over the entrance.
As per The Guardian, hundreds of people have fled the Jenin camp over the past few days.
“Most of the camp’s residents were forced out, and I was made to leave my neighbourhood,” said 65-year-old Saleh Ammar. “I saw with my own eyes the 12 large bulldozers they brought in: if they wanted to destroy an entire city, they could have done so.”
“The situation is horrible,” taxi driver Adel told BBC. “I live on al-Awda Street, and I’m the last one to leave. There’s no one there."
“Everyone has to leave before 17:00,” Adel added. “God knows what they’re going to do.”
Ammar told the newspaper that forces affiliated to the Palestinian Authority also attacked residents.
The PA in December attacked the Jenin refugee camp to take out militias that are hostile to it.
“I am so upset by the Palestinian Authority invasion – they burned the houses, installed snipers on the rooftops and opened fire randomly,” Ammar said. “This continued until Israeli forces entered the camp … we are living between two fires.”
“The Israeli army wants to destroy the camp and make it like Jabaliya,” Ammar added. “They want to destroy the houses, bulldoze the streets and remove residents from the camp. They told us to get out before they start bombing.”
Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told Agence France-Presse that hundreds of people who lived in the camp “have begun leaving after the Israeli army, using loudspeakers on drones and military vehicles, ordered them to evacuate the camp.”
A man who lives on the edge of the camp told AFP that the Israeli army asked people to leave between 9 am and 5 pm. “There are dozens of camp residents who have begun to leave,” he said. “The army is in front of my house. They could enter at any moment.”
“It’s different this time - they’re striking everywhere. It’s like Gaza,” one man leaving the camp told BBC.
Kefah Sehwal, 52, said she had lost over a dozen members of her family over the past year and a half.
“After what happened to [Israeli forces] in Gaza, the reaction is here,” she told me. “They’re taking it out on us.”
However, the outlet quoted Israel government spokesman David Mencer as saying there were “no evacuation orders whatsoever” for the people of Jenin.
“People in Jenin not connected with terrorism are free to leave, to get away from our action,” he said. He called reports of evacuation orders as “fake news, probably spread by supporters of Hamas”.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has claimed that at least 10 people have been killed in Jenin.
BBC reported that businessman Ahmed al-Shayeb was killed by Israeli forces.
Ahmed was shot dead with his 10-year-old son Taym in the car while he was driving near the Jenin’s refugee camp.
“They started shooting, and a bullet hit him,” Taym told the media. “He said, ‘God, God,’ then the car hit the pavement. I saw two army vehicles coming toward us. They started to shoot towards the car, but I jumped out and ran away."
Angelita Caredda, the Middle East and North Africa director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told The Guardian, “We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza.”
Why is this happening?
Israel says it is trying to rid the West Bank of militant groups.
As per CNN, Jenin is home to a number of militant groups including the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Qassem Brigades.
They all coalesce under the name the Jenin Battalion.
The outlet quoted Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz as saying that the military has decided to “ensure that terrorism does not return” to the West Bank.
Katz said Operation “Iron Wall” would “eliminate terrorists and terror infrastructure in the camp, ensuring that terrorism does not return to the camp after the operation is over – the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”
BBC quoted the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service as saying that Israel was trying to tamp down on militancy in the West Bank.
“Right now, it’s Samaria’s [northern West Bank] time,” Ronen Bar said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Army chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi has spoken of bringing Jenin to “a different place.”
Israel said it is concerned about the West Bank becoming a target for its enemies particularly Iran.
Katz said, “We will not allow Judea and Samaria to become like Gaza or southern Lebanon… We will act to cut off Iran’s tentacles in the refugee camps in the West Bank and ensure the security of the communities and residents.”
The Guardian quoted Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Lt Col Nadav Shoshani as saying the idea behind the operation was to stop militants “from regrouping” and attacking civilian targets.
Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad who is now a member of the policy group Commanders for Israel’s Security, said, “We need to carry out pre-emptive attacks. We will not wait for a squad from Jenin to come and enter Tel Aviv, but we will do our utmost in order to gather the information needed about this squad, and we will kill them.”
Yatom said Israeli forces is acting as the PA has been unable to oust the groups in Jenin aligned with Hamas.
“There is now cooperation between the Palestinian Authority security apparatus and the IDF, even though the PA security could not accomplish the mission in general,” Yatom said. “So it was a mistake … Hamas was never deterred. It was a total mistake of our security apparatus to think that Hamas is deterred.”
Israel’s Channel 11 quoted a senior military source as saying, “The PA did what they could. We recognized the need to act against the terrorists’ capabilities, we are no longer waiting for their intentions. Our goal is to neutralise the Jenin battalion.”
But Palestinian lawyer Mohammad Dahleh told Al Jazeera, “They want to continue the war in Gaza and the way to do that is escalation in the West Bank.”
Palestinian researcher and activist Hamza Zubiedat said Israel is continuing to annexe the West Bank.
Zubiedat described the scenario as “catastrophic”.
“By isolating and cutting the Palestinian villages and cities from each other, it means no more doctors, nurses, teachers, even transporting the goods and fruits and vegetables from one place to another.”
“It means more poverty and suffering for the Palestinian people,” he added.
This development comes as an Israeli tank killed two Palestinians west of Gaza’s Rafah on Thursday in an apparent breach of the ceasefire.
“Israel has a right to continue military attacks in Gaza if it deems negotiations regarding the second phase of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas to be fruitless,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Violence has surged throughout the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 850 Palestinians in the West Bank since the conflict began.
During the same period, at least 29 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the territory, according to Israeli official figures.
With inputs from agencies
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