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’.
Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, said on Tuesday he would resign on March 6, taking responsibility for the massive security lapse on 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen from Gaza carried out a cross-border attack on Israel.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he did not see Donald Trump’s new administration increasing the risk of an Israel-Iran conflict, addressing an issue the region has feared since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Israel launches ‘significant’ military operation in West Bank
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 US 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,” said Netanyahu. 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 weekslong 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 Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.
Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its reach in the West Bank over recent years, called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.
As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.
Palestinian health services said at least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded as the Israeli raid began, a week after an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.
Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel, and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids.
Hardline pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Israeli policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a “strong and ongoing campaign” against militant groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers”.
Smotrich earlier welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration in expanding settlements.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
The internationally recognised Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule over some territory in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.
In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation, Palestinians throughout the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza.
Late on Monday, bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of al-Funduq, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.
The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.
Israeli army chief to resign over 7 October security breach
Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, said on Tuesday he would resign on March 6, taking responsibility for the massive security lapse on 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen from Gaza carried out a cross-border attack on Israel.
Halevi, who had been widely expected to step down in the wake of the deadliest single day in Israel’s history, said he would complete the Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) inquiries into 7 October and strengthen the IDF’s readiness for security challenges.
It was not immediately clear who would replace Halevi, who said he would transfer the IDF command to a yet-to-be-named successor.
Despite public anger over the attack, Netanyahu’s government has resisted calls to open a state inquiry into its responsibility for the security breach that resulted in 1,200 Israelis being killed and about 250 hostages taken.
“On the morning of Oct. 7, the IDF under my command failed in its mission to protect the citizens of Israel,” Halevi wrote in his resignation letter to Defense Minister Israel Katz.
“My responsibility for the terrible failure accompanies me every day, hour by hour, and will do so for the rest of my life,” said Halevi, a military veteran of four decades.
In a televised address, Halevi promised a deep and transparent investigation, the details of which would be presented to the defence minister and, as much as permissible, to the public.
Maariv news outlet reported that the heads of the navy and air force would soon submit their resignations.
Saudi foreign minister says Trump does not raise risk of Iran-Israel war
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he did not see Donald Trump’s new administration increasing the risk of an Israel-Iran conflict, addressing an issue the region has feared since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud also said in Davos that he hoped Trump’s approach to Iran would be met with a willingness by Tehran to positively engage with the US administration and address the issue of its nuclear programme.
“Obviously a war between Iran and Israel, any war in our region is something we should try to avoid as much as possible,” said Prince Faisal during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort.
“I don’t see the incoming US administration as contributory to the risk of war; on the contrary, President Trump has been quite clear he does not favour conflict.”
Gazans’ joy at ceasefire dims as they visit ruined homes, dig for the dead
On foot or riding rickshaws, many Palestinians exhausted by war in Gaza began returning to the ruins of their homes on the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, shocked by the destruction.
The truce took effect on Sunday after 15 months of conflict with the handover of the first three hostages held by Hamas and the release of 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails.
Now attention is shifting to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave, which the Israeli military has reduced to vast tracts of rubble in its campaign to wipe out Hamas in retaliation for the militant group’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
Some Gazans could not even recognise where they once lived and turned their back on shattered neighbourhoods to return to tents where they had sheltered for the past several months. Others began to clear debris to try to move back to the wreckage of their homes.
“We are cleaning the house, and removing the rubble, so we are able to return home. Those are the quilts, pillows, nothing was left at the house,” said Palestinian woman Walaa El-Err, pointing to her destroyed belongings at her bombed-out home in Nuseirat, a decades-old refugee camp in central Gaza.
She said the feeling of returning to her neighbourhood was “indescribable”. She said she’d stayed up all night on Saturday waiting for the truce to take effect the next day. But the optimism surrounding news of a ceasefire has faded.
“When I went into the camp, I teared up, as our camp was not like that, it was the best. When we left, all the towers [and] homes were still untouched, and none of the neighbours had been killed,” she lamented.
In Gaza City in the enclave’s north, Abla, a mother of three children, waited for a few hours to make sure the truce held on Sunday before heading to her home in the Tel Al-Hawa suburb, demolished by Israeli bombardments and ground offensives.
The scene was “horrific”, she said, as the seven-floor building had been levelled, “smashed like a piece of biscuit”.
“What I found wasn’t just a house, it is the box of memories, where I had my children, celebrated their birthday parties, made them food, and taught them their first words and moves,” she said.
Some set up tents next to the rubble of their houses, or moved into wrecked homes, wondering when reconstruction would begin.
A United Nations damage assessment released this month showed that clearing more than 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2-billion.
To make matters worse, some of the debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, as some of Gaza’s devastated refugee camps, built up into cities since the 1940s, are known to have been constructed with the material.
Gaza health authorities say at least 47,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with the rubble probably holding the remains of thousands more.
A UN Development Programme report says that development in Gaza has been set back seven decades by the war.
“They [Gazans] are able to return home. It’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination, I would say, to call it homes, because mostly, particularly in the north, it’s mountains of rubble that they find. So they need help with that,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a Geneva press briefing on Tuesday.
Palestinian rescue workers continued the search for the remains of Gazans buried under the wreckage of their houses and along the roadsides, locating at least 150 bodies since the truce went into effect, according to the Gaza civil emergency service.
Qatar PM hopes Palestinian Authority will return to Gaza when war ends
Qatar’s Prime Minister said in Davos on Tuesday he hoped the Palestinian Authority (PA) would return to play a governing role in Gaza once the war with Israel comes to an end.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Switzerland, two days after the ceasefire Qatar helped broker came into effect in Gaza, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani cautioned that Gazans — and not any other country — should dictate the way the enclave will be governed.
“We hope to see the PA back in Gaza. We hope to see a government that will really address the issues of the people over there. And there is a long way to go with Gaza and the destruction,” he said.
How Gaza will be governed after the war was not directly addressed in the deal between Israel and Hamas that led to an immediate ceasefire and hostage releases after nearly 15 months of talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US.
Israel has rejected any governing role for Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war, but it has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank.
The PA, dominated by the Fatah faction created by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, faces opposition from rival faction Hamas, which drove the PA out of Gaza in 2007 after a brief civil war.
Yemen vice-president says Trump return pivotal in fight against Houthis
The vice-president of Yemen’s UN-recognised government on Tuesday welcomed Trump’s return as US president, saying it was a decisive turning point to curb the Iran-backed Houthis, who he said threaten regional stability and maritime security.
Aidarous al-Zubaidi told Reuters that Trump’s strong leadership and willingness to employ military strength were in sharp contrast to the Biden administration, which he said had allowed the Houthis to consolidate power, bolster their military capabilities and extend their reach beyond Yemen.
“Trump knows what he wants. He is a strong decision-maker,” said Zubaidi in an interview on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos.
“We are fans, admirers and supporters of Trump’s policy … because he has a personality that has enough decision-making power to rule America and the world,” he said, adding that he expected talks with the incoming administration to begin soon.
While the Houthis control the northwest of Yemen, where most of its 23 million people live, the rest is held by the Southern Transitional Council which wants an independent southern Yemen and is backed by the United Arab Emirates.
Zubaidi heads the armed group, which holds three seats on the eight-strong Presidential Leadership Council, the Aden-based coalition government opposed to the Houthis.
He said the unification of Yemen remained elusive and called for two states as was the case before 1990, when South Yemen was separate from North Yemen.
Turkey ‘could restart Israel trade if peace permanent’
Turkey could restart trade with Israel “if peace is permanent”, said Nail Olpak, head of the Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Board (Deik), on Tuesday.
Turkey severed trade with Israel last year over its war in Gaza with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. This week Israel and Hamas began carrying out a complex ceasefire deal. DM
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