Israel launches 'significant' military operation in West Bank, at least eight Palestinians killed

Ali Sawafta - Reuters - 21/01
Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a "large-scale and significant military operation".
  • Operation a day after Trump lifts sanctions on settlers
  • Hamas calls on Palestinians to escalate fighting in West Bank
  • Bands of settlers attack Palestinian villages
JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a "large-scale and significant military operation".
The action, launched a day after U.S. President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against Iranian-backed militants.
"We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.
The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank.
The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in self-rule areas of the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major centre of armed militant groups including...
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