At least nine Palestinians were killed after Israel launched a large-scale ground and air attack on the northern part of the West Bank, health officials in the occupied territory have confirmed.
The incursion, which began early on Wednesday, involved hundreds of soldiers supported by military aircraft, drones and bulldozers, targeting three areas simultaneously – Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas – in the largest assault in two decades.
The director of the ambulance department at the Palestine Red Crescent Society told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces killed four people in the Far’a refugee camp in Tubas.
The Red Crescent noted its teams were having trouble reaching the injured because Israeli troops were preventing ambulances from entering the area.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two people were killed in Jenin, while three others were slain when an Israeli drone struck their vehicle in the nearby village of Seir.
Tel Aviv has described the operation in the north of the occupied territory as the biggest of its kind since 2002.
There are an estimated 80,000 Palestinians in the areas where the military operations are continuing.
The number of raids on the West Bank has “more than tripled” since the outbreak of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in October.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority (PA) presidency, stated Israel’s escalating war in the West Bank in addition to the war in the Gaza Strip will lead to “dire and dangerous” results.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia and returned to Ramallah on Wednesday following the Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza, Israeli army raids have become a nightly occurrence in towns and villages in the West Bank, with Israeli soldiers and settlers killing at least 646 Palestinians, including 148 children, and injuring more than 5,400, Palestinian health officials have said.
During this time, Israeli soldiers have arrested at least 10,200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
The same groups report that at least 3,432 Palestinians are being held in Israeli military prisons without charge under “administrative detention”.
At least 1,432 Palestinian homes, and other structures, have been demolished, displacing 3,270 Palestinians, according to the United Nations.
There has also been an uptick in violence by settlers – Israeli citizens who live illegally on private Palestinian land in both the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
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