The Israeli army launched a large military operation on Wednesday, with raids and arrests, in the Tubas area of the northern West Bank. The armed forces declared a curfew, closed all access to the city with mounds of earth and checkpoints, and warned the Palestinian National Authority – which on paper exercises administrative and security control – that the offensive will last several days, explained the governor of the region, Ahmed al Asaad. It appears to be an extension of operations launched earlier this year in three refugee camps in the northern West Bank (which Israel has occupied militarily since the 1967 Six-Day War) and which still keep more than 30,000 people displaced from their homes. In Tubas, however, no massive population movements have been recorded.
The army calls it “a vast anti-terrorism operation” in collaboration with the Shin Bet (the Israeli secret service) and the border police, with the aim of “acting proactively” to prevent “terrorism from taking root” in the northern West Bank. According to Israeli media, the equivalent of three brigades are participating, which means several thousand soldiers and agents.
The images show Apache helicopters flying over the city of Tubas, as well as the arrival of troop transport vehicles and military excavators. The Israeli army has closed major roads in the region, causing serious traffic jams. Schools and nurseries have closed their doors.
In Tammun, a municipality south of Tubas, soldiers have already turned at least 10 houses into firing positions, damaging roads and cutting water pipes, according to the municipal council. Troops surrounded entire neighborhoods, isolating them from each other and raiding numerous homes, he added. In the photographs, soldiers can be seen taking the arrested people away with their hands cuffed behind their backs. The Red Crescent reported at least one person injured by shots fired by Israeli soldiers.
“Maximum unit”
Hamas issued a statement calling on Palestinian society to show “maximum national unity to address the open war in the West Bank” and for the international community to take “immediate and forceful measures.” Since October 2023 and in parallel with the invasion of Gaza, more than a thousand Palestinians (including militiamen and civilians) have died in the West Bank due to Israeli fire, mainly from soldiers and border police.
A video from the Al Jazeera television network also shows military vehicles entering Tulkarem, another city in the West Bank, this morning. They had already entered it in January 2025, at the beginning of the largest military operation in the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifada, two decades earlier. The Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, then spoke of applying “the first lesson of the method” of Gaza there and threatened to leave similar destruction. At least 32,000 civilians have fled, or been forced to leave, three northern refugee camps: Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem.
Ten months later, they are still in the homes of relatives, mosques, schools or charities, with no sign of return from the Israeli authorities. It is the largest forced exodus to the West Bank since the Six-Day War, and human rights NGO Human Rights Watch called it war crimes and crimes against humanity in a report on the matter last week.
