At least 10 terrorists killed after Israel launches West Bank operation
Israeli forces launched a large operation in the West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, killing at least 10 Hamas terrorists, carrying out arrests and sealing off the volatile city of Jenin.
The ongoing operation was among the largest in the West Bank in months. Israel says it is rooting out West Bank terrorists to prevent attacks.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said “large forces” had entered Jenin, long a terrorist stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp, all in the northern West Bank.
He said Israeli forces killed three terrorists in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four in an airstrike in Al-Faraa. He said another five suspected terrorists were arrested, and that the raids were the first stage of an even larger operation. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.
Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank on Wednesday, including three of the four men killed in Jenin. It was not immediately clear if the fourth was also a fighter. The military said all of the dead were terrorists.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz drew comparisons with Gaza and called for similar measures in the West Bank.
“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 might be required. This is a war in every respect, and we must win it,” he wrote on the platform X.
The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. The terrorists are still holding 108 hostages, around a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a November cease-fire.
Israel responded with an offensive that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not say how many were terrorists.
Israeli authorities said Wednesday that they have recovered the body of a soldier who was abducted and killed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and who had since been held in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli’s military and the Shin Beit internal security agency rescued the remains of the fallen soldier in a joint operation overnight and returned them to Israel, according to a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the man’s death, saying he had fallen “in a heroic battle” on Oct. 7 while defending Israeli communities near Gaza.
The U.S., Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a cease-fire that would see the remaining hostages released. But the talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed “total victory” over Hamas and the terrorist group has demanded a lasting cease-fire and a full withdrawal from the territory.
There was no sign of a breakthrough after days of talks in Egypt, and the negotiations moved to Qatar this week.
One of the hostages was released Tuesday after Israeli forces found him in a tunnel. After a short stay in a hospital he returned Wednesday to his Bedouin village where he got a hero’s welcome.