Lorenzo Tondo
The Guardian / January 21, 2025
Palestinian health ministry says at least eight killed in operation launched day after Donald Trump lifted sanctions on violent Jewish settlers
Jerusalem – Israeli security forces have launched an operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, a day after bands of Jewish settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property and the new US president, Donald Trump, announced he was lifting sanctions on violent settlers.
At least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 people were injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its first responders treated seven people injured by live ammunition and that Israeli forces were hindering their access to the area.
The director of Khalil Suleiman hospital in Jenin, Wissam Bakr, said that three nurses and two doctors had been injured by Israeli fire during the military operation.
The operation, codenamed “Iron Wall”, took place as the Gaza ceasefire entered a third day and was described by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as “another step towards achieving the goal we set – strengthening security in Judea and Samaria”. He said it included police, military and the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency.
“We act methodically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it sends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu added.
Jenin has been a focus of Israeli raids into the occupied West Bank throughout the 15-month war in Gaza. The Palestinian health ministry says more than 800 people have been killed in Israeli raids since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks that triggered the war.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, also launched its own raid into the area late last year while hoping to position itself as a serious player in governing postwar Gaza.
Sources quoted in the Israeli media said the operation was expected to last several days.
The Israeli government has accused Iran, which backs militant groups across the Middle East including Hamas in Gaza, of attempting to send weapons and money to militants in the West Bank.
The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories said that “public statements by Israeli military officials raise concern about Israel’s plans to expand and increase operations in the occupied West Bank”.
The operation, called Iron Wall, has been accompanied by increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement across the West Bank, with hundreds of checkpoints introduced in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Residents said that queues in front of the checkpoints stretch for kilometres, with waits of up to eight hours, effectively confining entire communities.
Reached by the Guardian, the IDF did not respond to a request for a comment about the establishments of new checkpoints in the West Bank.
Israeli settlers have set vehicles and properties on fire in the Palestinian villages where dozens of prisoners, who were released on Sunday in exchange for three Israeli hostages handed over by Hamas to Israel, were returning. More than 21 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have been injured as a result of the Israeli settlers’ attacks, including three children.
Jalal Bashir, the head of Jinasfut village council, was quoted by Wafa news agency on Monday evening as saying that the attacks took place in the villages of Jinasfut and Funduq, east of Qalqilya.
The Palestinian Authority has accused Trump of inciting Israeli settler violence after he on Monday rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals for allegedly committing violence against Palestinians.
The White House said Trump had rescinded an executive order issued on 1 February 2024, which authorised the imposition of certain sanctions “on persons undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank”.
Late on Tuesday four people were wounded in a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv while the attacker was killed.
In a separate development on Tuesday, Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, said he would resign, citing the “terrible failure” of security and intelligence related to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.
After Halevi’s decision to quit, the Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, called on Netanyahu and his government to resign.
“Now it is time for them to take responsibility and resign – the prime minister and his entire catastrophic government,” Lapid said.
Lorenzo Tondo is a Guardian correspondent
