Middle East crisis: Israel launches West Bank raids in latest Gaza escalation

Mutaz Abu Sanad, a businessman who lives at a camp in Tubas, told NBC News he worries the Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank could last several days as Israeli forces search every home.

The military operation at the Al-Faraa camp began at 11 last night when Israeli forces took control of the entrances, Sanad said. Then airstrikes hit a home at about 4 a.m.

Sanad alleges that the Israeli army entered a sports club and converted it into a military base. A number of young men who were exercising at the club at the time were arrested, he said.

The situation at the camp “is extremely difficult,” Sanad said. People fear moving around trying to leave as the search-and-arrest raids continue.

Israeli forces are raiding homes at a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and taking residents for interrogation, said Nihad Al-Shawish, an official for the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm.

Al-Shawish told NBC News that forces are searching houses and detaining young men inside. He alleges that they are being taken to locations outside the camp for interrogation.

Some have been released, but Al-Shawish said there is no information about the whereabouts of others. He described a “climate of fear” as access roads to the camp have been “destroyed” and civilians are not on the street.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, warned that the military operations in the occupied West Bank “must not” lead to an extension of the war in Gaza.

“The Israeli major military operation in the occupied West Bank must not constitute the premises of a war extension from Gaza, incl. full-scale destruction,” Borrell wrote on X.

The World Food Progamme said it is once again suspending its movements in Gaza after one of its convoys was hit with gunfire as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint yesterday.

“It sustained at least ten bullets: five on the driver’s side, two on the passenger side and three on other parts of the vehicle,” the organization said in a statement. “None of the employees onboard were physically harmed.”

It said the convoy was returning from a mission carrying humanitarian cargo to central Gaza. Executive Director Cindy McCain described it as the latest in “totally unacceptable” security incidents endangering her staff.

“As last night’s events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer,” McCain said. “I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of all aid workers in Gaza.” 

Staff at the Jenin Governmental Hospital in the occupied West Bank are now able to move freely after facing “severe restrictions” by Israeli forces, a doctor at the facility said.

Testimony from the doctor was shared by Medical Aid for Palestinians, which did not identify the staff member. An ambulance crew that had transferred a patient to Nablus had to wait outside for several hours before being allowed back in, the doctor said.

“There was also scrutiny of the identities of patients and medical staff who wanted to enter or leave the hospital,” the doctor said.

According to the statement, Israeli forces are still in the area but are no longer surrounding the hospital and staff movements are “back to normal.”

Emergency services crews in the occupied West Bank have been obstructed from providing ambulance services by Israeli forces, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

Teams across multiple camps were detained or prohibited from operating as they attempted to save lives, Nibal Farsakh said in a statement circulated by Medical Aid for Palestinians.

“Israeli forces stormed the medical point in al-Far’a camp, detained the medical teams and prevented them from any communication tools,” Farsakh said. “They continued firing shots inside the medical point and assaulted the director of the Tubas Emergency Centre before leaving.”

The Jenin Governmental Hospital was at one point blocked off entirely, he said, with crews not allowed to enter or leave the facility. Farsakh described the situation as “dire.”

“Every minute matters in saving lives; it’s the critical line between life and death,” he added.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called the Israeli military’s operation in the occupied West Bank “a dangerous escalation that must be stopped.”

“We again urge the Security Council, the EU, the US & all other members of the Int’l community to act firmly & immediately to end this aggression,” Safadi said on X.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has cut his visit to Saudi Arabia short and is returning to the occupied West Bank in light of the widespread raids, according to Palestinian news agency, WAFA. The PA holds partial control of the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank.

Abbas’ spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, also released a statement today warning that the raids would “lead to dire and dangerous results,” WAFA reported. Rudeineh said that there has been an escalating policy of destruction and violence.

“The world must take immediate and urgent action to curb this extremist government that poses a threat to the stability of the region and the world as a whole,” Rudeineh said.

The body of an Israel Defense Forces soldier who was abducted Oct. 7 has been recovered from Gaza, according to a joint statement from the military and Israel’s security agency.

In its statement, the IDF said the soldier’s family had been notified but the military did not identify him at the request of the family. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the soldier as an IDF veteran who died on Oct. 7 while “defending the communities surrounding Gaza.”

“The heart of the entire nation mourns the terrible loss,” Netanyahu said. “My wife Sara and I send our condolences from the bottom of our hearts to his family.”

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the U.S. State Department’s announcement today that it had issued new sanctions against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

“Israel takes very seriously the imposition of sanctions on Israeli citizens,” the PMO said in a statement. “The issue is under intense discussion with the United States.”

The U.S. had condemned “extremist settler violence,” in its statement and called on the Israeli government to hold people accountable for violence against civilians in the West Bank.

After Hamas launched the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, the country’s policy has been “clear,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told reporters today.

“There will be no safe places, no sanctuaries, and no places where terrorists can feel safe or believe they are in control,” David Mencer told a news briefing.

“As such, a targeted operation is taking place to thwart terrorist activity in Samaria,” he added, referring to the occupied West Bank by its biblical name.

Israeli security forces were operating in areas “from which murderous attacks have been launched,” he said.

Israel’s operation in the occupied West Bank “risks seriously deepening an already catastrophic situation,” the United Nations Human Rights Office has warned.

“Killings must be thoroughly and independently investigated,” it said on X. “Those responsible must be held to account.”

There have been at least 10 people killed and almost two dozen injured since dawn as a result of the Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it strongly condemned what it call the “illegal operation launched by Israel in the West Bank.”

It also criticized Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz for suggesting “they will extend the practices in Gaza to the West Bank.”

“It is imperative that the necessary punitive and coercive measures be taken against these actions by Israel in complete defiance of international law,” the ministry said.

The State Department announced sanctions today on an Israeli nongovernmental organization and a man who operates as a security coordinator for a settlement.

Members of Hashomer Yosh, an organization that provides support to a U.S. outpost, fenced off a village and kept 250 Palestinian residents from returning after they were forced out in January, the department said.

Yitzhak Levi Filant was also sanctioned, with the department saying he acted outside his scope as a civilian security coordinator to “engage in malign activities.” He allegedly led a group of armed settlers in a February attack and force out Palestinians.

“Extremist settler violence in the West Bank causes intense human suffering, harms Israel’s security, and undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region,” the department said. “It is critical that the Government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the West Bank.”

More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel, including 128 who died in airstrikes in August alone, according to the latest report from the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA also reported that last week 113 Palestinians were detained by Israeli Security Forces in search and arrest operations through the occupied territories.

In 2022, Tor Wennesland, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East Peace process, warned that it was among the deadliest years in the West Bank with 154 Palestinians killed.

The U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office recorded 198 Palestinians killed in the West Bank before the start of the war last year.

The Israeli military said today that it had killed Faris Qasim in an airstrike, describing him as a significant figure in the Iranian-backed militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The Israel Defense Forces said Qasim was behind the development of operational plans in Syria and Lebanon for Islamic Jihad, a Muslim Brotherhood-influenced group founded in the early 1980s that sometimes coordinates with Hamas in Gaza.

The IDF added that Qasim had “a central role” in the recruitment of militants who attacked Israel from Lebanon.

Other Islamic Jihad militants on their way from Syria to work with Lebanon-based Hezbollah were killed in the same strike, the IDF said.

Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the line between law enforcement and so-called war standards is difficult to draw in the occupied West Bank.

During it’s “endless occupation” of the West Bank, Israel should normally apply “law enforcement standards” to operations. These allow the use of “lethal force only as a last resort to stop an imminent lethal threat,” Roth added.

But “if the conflict with militants becomes intense and organized enough, Israel can apply war standards, which permits the killing of combatants (while taking all feasible precautions to spare civilians).”

“The line between the two can be difficult to draw,” he added. “It depends on the intensity and organization of the militants who are challenging Israeli forces.”

The Israel Defense Forces, Israel Security Agency (also known as the Shin Bet) and Israel Police said in a joint statement that forces had launched a “counterterrorism operation” in Jenin, Tulkarem and Al-Faraa refugee camp overnight.

They said three armed militants “who posed a threat” to security forces were killed in an airstrike in the area of Jenin and two other armed militants were killed in Jenin and Tulkarem, which are about 30 miles apart.

Airstrikes in Al-Faraa refugee camp, just over 15 miles south of Jenin, killed four other armed militants were killed, the statement said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said seven people were killed in Tubas and two in Jenin. 

The Palestinian government warned of “repercussions” for the “siege on the hospitals of Jenin and Tulkarm” in the occupied West Bank, adding that Israeli forces were threatening to storm the facilities.

Dozens of patients were being treated in the hospitals, and any incursion would be “a direct threat to the lives of patients and medical staff,” it said.

Israeli soldiers approach the Nour Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank this morning.