After a fragile ceasefire took hold in Gaza, Israeli strikes and settler attacks have hurt and killed a number of Palestinians in the West Bank.
As Palestinians returned to their homes in Gaza on Thursday under the terms of a long-awaited ceasefire deal, Israeli armoured vehicles were seen in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
A major Israeli military operation has been launched in the area, and suspected Israeli settlers have torn through two Palestinian towns.
Elsewhere Thursday, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian militants who reportedly carried out a deadly attack on a bus in the West Bank earlier this month.
The Israeli military said Thursday that the two men barricaded themselves in a structure in the West Bank village of Burqin and exchanged fire with Israeli troops before they were killed overnight. The army said a soldier was moderately wounded.
The Hamas militant group released a statement claiming the two men were members of its armed wing and praising the bus attack which killed three people and wounded six others.
The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and a hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, including a 16-year-old, with some 40 others wounded. The Israeli military said its forces carried out strikes and dismantled roadside bombs and “hit” ten militants, though it was not made clear what that meant.
The Palestinians view such operations and the expansion of settlements as ways of cementing Israeli control over the West Bank, where three million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule.
Jenin’s mayor, Mohammad Jarrar, described the scale and intensity of the Israeli operation to CNN as “by far the hardest and most troubling” in recent months. He warned against “a man-made disaster similar to what we have seen in Gaza”.
Meanwhile, newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump has rescinded the Biden administration’s sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.
According to the Times of Israel, the order was used over the past year against 17 individuals and 16 entities, including settlers the US said had violently attacked Palestinians and illegally driven them off their land.
It is understood that Netanyahu raised the issue with Trump ahead of his inauguration.
More than half a million Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war. These settlements are considered illegal under international law.
Israeli troops and settlers have reportedly killed at least 851 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
