The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service, have launched an operation in the occupied West Bank in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm, they announced in a brief joint statement early Wednesday.
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Israel launches major operation in West Bank; Palestinian officials say 9 killed
The operation in refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm was against “terrorist infrastructures that have been established there,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on social media, insisting Israel must deal with threats there even if it means “the temporary evacuation of residents.” Israel Border Police forces were also participating in the operation, the IDF said in an email.
At least nine Palestinians had been killed since midnight, the Health Ministry in Ramallah said. Seven were taken to a hospital in the city of Tubas and two to a hospital in Jenin, it said.
Entry to the city of Tulkarm was blocked off by Israeli forces, which also surrounded two hospitals there, according to WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency. Entry points into Jenin were also blocked, according to Al Jazeera.
On Monday, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike in Nur a-Shams in Tulkarm and one was killed by settlers in the Wadi Rahal village in Bethlehem, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Nur a-Shams strike “eliminated five terrorists operating within an operations room,” the IDF said.
Since Oct. 7, at least 607 Palestinians and 15 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.
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Human Rights Watch urged Israeli officials to ensure a polio vaccination campaign can be carried out in Gaza, after the Strip recorded its first case in 25 years. “Humanitarians are racing to vaccinate ~ 640k kids,” HRW executive director Tirana Hassan said, blaming “Israeli authorities’ ongoing attacks on water, sanitation, & health” for the reemergence of the highly infectious, potentially fatal disease.
At least 40,476 people have been killed and 93,647 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 339 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Lior Soroka contributed to this report.