Israel launched a massive strike on West Bank targets on Tuesday, hitting "Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure” and claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel," according to CNN.
“We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on social media. “This is a war for all terms and purposes and we must win it."
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a briefing that Israel had identified “a systematic strategy in Iran” of smuggling weapons and explosives into the West Bank.
“Specifically, about Jenin and Tulkarm, we’ve seen over 150 shooting and explosive attacks originated from these areas alone over the past year,” Shoshani said on Wednesday.
Early indications showed 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.
Palestinian deaths were reported in the towns of Tubas and Jenin, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Later, the Ministry of Health said a Palestinian had been killed by gunfire in the town of Kafr Dan in Jenin district, bringing the death toll to 10.
Hamas has called for a "general mobilization" following the strike. It's a bad joke considering the fact that every single Hamas fighter who can walk and shoot has been engaged with the IDF for months.
The White House said it supported Israel’s right to defend itself but said it “must do so in a way that limits civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure," reports the Wall Street Journal.
“It will reach a boiling point,” Ofer Shelah, a military analyst with the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, said of the broader situation in the West Bank. The IDF, he said, “are very worried about what’s going on there.”
The military had cordoned off Jenin and Tulkarem as well as Al-Far’a refugee camp near Tubas with checkpoints, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, an affiliate of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Israeli military vehicles surrounded the main hospitals in Jenin and Tulkarem and controlled access to them, including checking the identities of those arriving by ambulance, the Red Crescent said. The Israeli military said it was trying to prevent militants from embedding themselves in hospitals and turning them into places of fighting.
The operation comes after Palestinian health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday night in Nur Shams, an area east of Tulkarem. One of those killed had been released in a cease-fire deal with Hamas in November, and another was involved in manufacturing explosive charges, according to the Israeli military.
Attacking Palestinian terrorists in Jenin is not going to widen the war. And it sends a very strong signal to Iran to stop meddling in the fight against Hamas.
Biden hasn't given up trying to rein in Netanyahu, but he's realizing that the Israeli prime minister has an agenda that won't be fulfilled until the threat to Israel is extinguished.
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