Israel Launches Major Offensive in West Bank Days After Gaza Ceasefire

By Dave DeCamp – Antiwar.com

The Israeli military launched a major offensive in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday focused on the northern city of Jenin, which came just days after the ceasefire in Gaza took effect.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said at least nine Palestinians had been killed and 40 had been wounded by the Israeli attack on Jenin. Several doctors and nurses were among the wounded, according to the director of the Jenin Governmental Hospital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had “begun an extensive and significant military operation to defeat terrorism in Jenin – ‘Iron Wall’”

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Israeli warplanes and drones launched airstrikes on Jenin, and Israeli forces invaded the city with many armored vehicles. Israeli snipers were also deployed for the assault.

The Quds Brigade, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), said its fighters based in Jenin were confronting the invading Israeli forces and fired “heavy volleys of bullets.” So far, there’s been no word of Israeli casualties.

PIJ said the purpose of the offensive was for Netanyahu to save his “faltering government coalition” as he faced resignations for the Gaza ceasefire deal. “We call on our people throughout the occupied West Bank to confront this criminal campaign by all means, thwart its goals, and consolidate the enemy’s defeat in subduing the will of our people in the West Bank and Gaza,” PIJ said.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who threatened his Religious Zionism party would quit the government if the genocidal war doesn’t resume in Gaza, said the West Bank offensive was part of a deal he made with Netanyahu. “This is part of the war goals that were added to the cabinet’s demand for Religious Zionism on Friday,” he wrote on X.

Smotrich, a West Bank settler who has long called for the annexation of the territory, said the operation was launched to protect illegal settlements. “‘Iron Wall’ will be a strong and ongoing campaign against the elements of terrorism and its perpetrators, to protect the settlement and the settlers, and for the security of the entire State of Israel, of which the settlement is the security belt,” he said.

The Trump administration is expected to be more supportive of the Israeli government’s plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, which was demonstrated by President Trump lifting sanctions the Biden administration placed on violent settlers.

The offensive in the West Bank could have been part of the deal made between Netanyahu and Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to seal the Gaza ceasefire deal.