Israeli military targets West Bank after bus blasts near Tel Aviv

Israeli security services say the bombings on Thursday evening, which caused no casualties, were the work of armed groups, according to Israeli media.

“Following the attempt to perpetrate a chain of mass bus bombings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just completed a security assessment,” the office of the Israeli prime minister said on social media.

“The Prime Minister has ordered the [military] to carry out an intensive operation against centres of terrorism in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]. The Prime Minister also ordered the Israel Police and the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] to increase preventative activity against additional attacks in Israeli cities,” Netanyahu’s office added.

Some parts of the West Bank were immediately sealed off and further restrictions have been imposed on the movement of Palestinians.

The Israeli military later announced that it had deployed three extra units to its “Central Command”, which is responsible for Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, in preparation for expanding its weeks-long offensive against Palestinian communities.

“The [Israeli military] continues to conduct an ongoing situation assessment and prepares to expand offensive activity,” the military noted.

The bombs destroyed three empty buses parked in depots around Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv, while two additional undetonated bombs were found in the area by police.

The investigation has been passed on to Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency.

According to police, the explosives were likely intended to go off on Friday morning when people were on their way to work, describing the devices as identical to others used in the West Bank, but no further details were provided.

“We need to determine if a single suspect placed explosives on a number of buses, or if there were multiple suspects,” police spokesman Haim Sargrof told Israeli media.

Israeli troops have set up hundreds of checkpoints across the occupied West Bank since the start of their onslaught on January 21, and at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military during that time.

There has also been widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in local communities by Israeli soldiers.