Israeli authorities said its forces also conducted an aerial counterterrorism operation in the area of Al-Faraa refugee camp, just over 15 miles south of Jenin, in which Israeli authorities said four other armed militants were killed.
The Palestinian health ministry said in a post on Telegram on Wednesday at least nine people were killed overnight.
The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said on Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had surrounded the area and blocked off exit and entry points, as well as access to hospitals, The Associated Press reported.
Nihad Al-Shawish, an official from the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarem, said hours before the raids began the camp was warned that civilians should consider evacuating the area by the Palestinian Authority’s liaison with Israel. Evacuations were not mandatory, he said.
Yousself Barahmi told NBC News he could see the camp being “surrounded by the IDF,” from his home less than two-miles away in the town of the same name.
The Palestinian Authority employee said his mother-in-law who lives in the camp had told him that Israeli forces were surrounding her house. He added that he was no longer able to reach her over the phone.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa’s office said in a statement that any incursion into hospitals was “a direct threat to the lives of patients and medical staff.” Israeli forces had blocked entry roads and besieged multiple medical facilities across the West Bank, the statement added.
‘Full-fledged war’
Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz made the connection between the raids in the West Bank and the ongoing war in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, many of them civilians.
He said his country must “address this threat in the same manner as we deal with terrorist infrastructures in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any other necessary measures.”
This is a “full-fledged war and we must win it,” he added.
Katz also said that the IDF was “operating with intensity” in Jenin and Tulkarem to stamp out “Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructures.”
“Iran is working to set up an eastern terrorist front against Israel in the West Bank, following the model of Gaza and Lebanon, through the funding and arming of terrorists and the smuggling of advanced weapons from Jordan,” he said.
Israel frequently blames Iran — which doesn’t officially recognize Israel’s right to exist and has supported militant groups throughout the region, including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — for violence in the region.
