Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, where its forces killed at least nine Palestinians and sealed off the volatile city of Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.
Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Israel says it is rooting out militants to prevent attacks on its citizens, while Palestinians in the West Bank fear it intends to broaden the war and forcibly displace them.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “large forces” had entered the volatile city of Jenin, which has long been a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank.
He said the nine dead were all militants, including three killed in an air strike in Tulkarem and another …