Israel’s military sent tanks into the occupied West Bank for the first time in more than two decades as it expanded operations in the territory on Sunday in a move decried by Palestinian authorities as an escalation of aggression.
Israel has been carrying out “Operation Iron Wall” – a military campaign focused on the northern West Bank which launched last month, just two days after the Gaza ceasefire began.
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deployed a tank platoon to the northern West Bank city of Jenin, as Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the military “to prepare for prolonged presence” in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank for the “coming year,” and to “prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism.”
Katz said that three camps – Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams – were now empty of some 40,000 residents after being “evacuated.” Several residents who fled Jenin refugee camp previously told CNN the Israeli military had ordered them to evacuate and they did not know when they would be allowed to return home.
At least 27 people have been killed in the offensive in Jenin and 70 across the West Bank since the beginning of the year, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Earlier this week, Israeli forces demolished more than a dozen apartment buildings at a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian official told CNN.
Israeli tanks were last sent into the West Bank in 2002 as part of “Operation Defensive Shield” during the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, the Israeli military told CNN.
‘Escalating aggression’
The Israeli military meanwhile said Sunday that it was operating in “additional towns” in the Jenin area.
The Israeli military has launched regular incursions into Jenin and its refugee camps in recent years but has not established a permanent presence in the immediate area. Jenin came under Israeli occupation in 1967 but was put under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority in 1995 as a result of the Oslo Accords.
Since Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel has engaged in an increasingly militarized campaign that it says targets West Bank militants, employing tactics like airstrikes that were once nearly unheard of there.
The Palestinian foreign ministry said Israel’s “deployment of heavy tanks” was a “step towards escalating its aggression and expanding its crimes against the Palestinian people, especially in the northern West Bank and its refugee camps.”
In a statement, the ministry “emphasized the urgent need for international intervention to curb the aggression of the occupation, which is carried out without regard for laws or signed agreements, and to compel it to cease its aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights, foremost of which is their right to remain on their land.”
Israeli Defense Minister Katz said Sunday the Israeli military is “conducting offensive operations to eliminate terrorist strongholds, neutralizing militants, and destroying terror infrastructure, buildings, and weapons caches on a large scale.”
He vowed to “continue clearing refugee camps and other terror hubs to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of radical Islam.”
“We will not return to the previous reality,” he said.
The Palestinian foreign ministry has dismissed such justifications as “pretexts” to bring the territory under Israeli control.
In November, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – who is in charge of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – ordered preparations for the annexation of the settlements, saying that US President Donald Trump’s victory “brings an important opportunity for the state of Israel.”
Palestinians want the West Bank, as well as Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem, for a future independent state. Jewish settlements there are considered illegal under international law.
CNN’s Kareem Khadder contributed to this report.
