Israel's defense minister said Sunday troops would remain “for the coming year” in parts of the occupied West Bank where they have launched a weekslong offensive and would prevent tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians from returning, as Israel deepens its crackdown on the Palestinian territory.
Israel launched a broad offensive on the northern West Bank on Jan. 21 — two days after the ceasefire that paused the war in Gaza took hold — and then expanded it to include other nearby areas. Israel says it is determined to stamp out militancy in the territory, but Palestinians view such raids as part of an effort to cement Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under military rule. The raids have been deadly, caused destruction to urban areas and displaced tens of thousands.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to prepare to remain in some of the West Bank's urban refugee camps, from where he said some 40,000 Palestinians had fled — a figure confirmed by the United Nations — leaving the areas “emptied of residents.”
He said in a statement he had ordered the military to “prepare for an extended stay in the camps that were cleared for the coming year and to not allow the return of residents or for terror to grow again." It was not clear for how long Palestinians would be prevented from returning.
The military said it was expanding the raid in the West Bank to other areas and, in a rare move, was sending tanks to Jenin, long a bastion of armed struggle against Israel.
The refugee camps are home to descendants of Palestinians who fled or were forced to flee during wars with Israel decades ago.
Under interim peace agreements from the early 1990s, Israel maintains control over large parts of the West Bank while the Palestinian Authority administers other areas. Israel regularly sends troops into Palestinian zones but it typically withdraws them once forces complete their missions.
The U.N. says the current operation is the longest since the early 2000s, when Israel regularly raided the West Bank in response to a deadly Palestinian uprising.
Violence has surged in the West Bank throughout the Israel-Hamas war. Israel has carried out repeated raids during that time, but with fighting in Gaza and in Lebanon on hold, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under pressure from his far-right governing partners to crack down on militancy in the West Bank.
More than 800 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel says most of those were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions as well as people not involved in confrontations have also been killed. In the most recent operation, a pregnant Palestinian woman was killed.
Jewish settlers have also carried out repeated rampages throughout Palestinian areas in the territory. There has also been a spike in Palestinian attacks emanating from the West Bank and late Thursday, blasts rocked three empty parked buses in Israel, what police are viewing as a suspected militant attack.
The intensifying raids come at a sensitive time, as the truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza holds yet remains tenuous.
Israel said it was delaying the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners until it gets assurances that Hamas stops what Israel says are “humiliating” handovers of hostages being freed. The sides do not yet appear to have begun negotiations on extending the ceasefire and its collapse could lead to renewed fighting in war-torn Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future independent state.
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