Israel’s defence minister said on Wednesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin, which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed militant groups in the volatile West Bank city.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy said on Wednesday he would be part of a team of “outside overseers” deployed in and along the Gaza Strip to ensure safety following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants.
Iran delivered a conciliatory message to Western leaders in Davos on Wednesday, with a top official denying it wants nuclear weapons and offering talks about opportunities, days after its arch adversary Trump’s return to the White House.
Israeli army ‘applying lessons from Gaza in West Bank operation’
Israel’s defence minister said on Wednesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed militant groups in the volatile West Bank city.
A military spokesperson declined to give details but said the operation was “relatively similar” to but in a smaller area than one last August, in which hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and helicopters raided Jenin and other flashpoint cities in the occupied West Bank.
It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.
At least four Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday, after 10 were killed a day earlier, said Palestinian health services, and residents reported constant gunfire and explosions.
Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the militants’ increasing use of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were a particular focus of the operation, which included armoured bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.
As the operation continued, many Palestinians left their homes in the camp, a crowded township for descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war of Israel’s creation.
“Thank God, we were at home, we went out and asked an ambulance to take us out,” said a woman who gave her name as Um Mohammad.
Before the raid, which came two weeks after a shooting attack blamed by Israel on gunmen from Jenin, roadblocks and checkpoints had been thrown up across the West Bank in an effort to slow down movement across the territory.
As the raid began, Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces pulled out after having conducted a weekslong operation to try to reassert control over the refugee camp, dominated by Palestinian factions that are hostile to the PA, which exercises limited governance in parts of the West Bank.
The operation came just two days after the launch of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, with Israeli troops pulling back from their positions in many areas of the enclave.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military’s security plan in the West Bank and was “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza”.
“We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said in a statement.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza, following the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by bands of Hamas-led gunmen, has left much of the coastal enclave in ruins after 15 months of bombardment. The military has said it has refined its urban warfare tactics in the light of its experience in Gaza, but Shoshani declined to provide details of how such lessons were being applied in Jenin.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries deem Israel’s settlements on territory taken in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
Trump’s envoy will be in Gaza for ceasefire inspections
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy said on Wednesday he would be part of a team of “outside overseers” deployed in and along the Gaza Strip to ensure safety following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants.
Steve Witkoff’s comments to Fox News appeared to be the first public confirmation of the planned use of outside inspectors in Gaza, including a presence by US officials.
Israel and Hamas struck a multiphase deal last week to cease fire and release hostages held by the militants, after months of mediation by the US, Qatar and Egypt. Trump demanded a deal before he took office on 20 January. The deal took effect on 19 January.
Witkoff told Fox he was focused on ensuring the deal moves from its initial six-week phase to its second phase, which mediators say is expected to include the release of all remaining hostages and a complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.
“I’m actually going to be going over to Israel. I’m going to be part of an inspection team at the Netzarim corridor, and also at the Philadelphi corridor,” said Witkoff.
Netzarim is an east-west strip Israel cleared during the war that prevents Palestinians’ free movement between north and south Gaza. Philadelphi is a narrow border strip between Gaza and Egypt.
“That’s where you have outside overseers, sort of making sure that people are safe and people who are entering are not armed and no one has bad motivations,” added Witkoff.
Iran tries to calm nuclear concerns as UN warns on enrichment
Iran delivered a conciliatory message to Western leaders in Davos on Wednesday, with a top official denying it wants nuclear weapons and offering talks about opportunities, days after its arch adversary Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
However, the comments by Iran’s Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif coincided with a warning by the UN’s nuclear watchdog that Tehran was “pressing the gas pedal” in enriching uranium to near weapons-grade.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has called for diplomacy between Iran and Trump, who in his first term, pulled the US out of a nuclear deal that had imposed strict limits on Iran’s atomic activities.
Asked how crucial the dialogue between Tehran and Trump was right now, Grossi replied in Davos: “Absolutely indispensable.”
“Without their dialogue, there’s not going to be any progress,” he said during a media panel discussion.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, meanwhile, said that Iran must make a first step towards improving relations with countries in the Middle East and the US by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.
Zarif’s remarks appeared aimed at calming those worries, amid fears that the Middle East is headed for yet more war with the return of a US president who, during his first administration, cast Tehran as his top foreign policy villain.
Zarif dismissed the idea that Tehran sought nuclear arms, and signalled support for the idea of talks to improve relations between Iran and its critics in the West.
“There’s always hope that people will choose rationality. I hope that this time around, a ‘Trump 2’ will be more serious, more focused, more realistic,” Zarif told a panel, adding the Islamic Republic did not pose a security threat to the world.
Top Saudi diplomat to visit Lebanon for first time in 15 years
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister visits Lebanon on Thursday in the first trip to Beirut by Riyadh’s top diplomat in 15 years, seeking a commitment to reform as the Gulf state reasserts sway in a country where Iranian influence is waning.
The visit by Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud reflects seismic political shifts in Lebanon since Israel pummelled the Iran-backed Hezbollah in last year’s war, and since Hezbollah’s Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled by rebels in December.
Prince Faisal is expected to meet Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun and its Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam. Both took office this month, marking a new phase for a country that has been mired in financial crisis since 2019 and is now facing a reconstruction bill of billions of dollars.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Prince Faisal said Saudi Arabia regarded the election of a Lebanese president after a vacuum of more than two years as extremely positive. He expressed hope that a new Lebanese government would be formed “in the not too distant future”.
“We will need to see real action, we will need to see real reform, we will need to see a commitment to a Lebanon that is looking to the future, not to the past, in order for us to raise our engagement,” he said.
“I plan to be visiting Lebanon this week, and I think, based on what I hear there and what we see, I think that will inform the kingdom’s approach,” he added.
Lebanese officials said he was expected on Thursday.
Yemen’s Houthis free crew of Galaxy Leader
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have released the crew of the Galaxy Leader more than a year after they seized the Bahamas-flagged vessel off the Yemeni Red Sea coast, reported Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV on Wednesday.
It said the crew were handed to Oman “in coordination” with the three-day-old ceasefire in Gaza’s warbetween Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“The release of the Galaxy Leader crew comes within the framework of our solidarity with Gaza and in support of the ceasefire agreement,” it quoted the Houthi Supreme Political Council as saying.
The crew is comprised of 25 nationals from Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Philippines, Mexico and Romania, according to the car carrier’s owner Galaxy Maritime. The vessel was chartered by Japan’s Nippon Yusen.
The Galaxy Leader was escorted to the Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Houthi-controlled north Yemen after being boarded by Houthi forces at sea on 19 November 2023, soon after the outbreak of war in Gaza.
The Houthis have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships plying the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s devastating air and ground war against Hamas in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.
More than 2,400 aid trucks enter Gaza under truce
Nearly 900 humanitarian aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas, as a senior UN official said so far there had been no apparent law-and-order issues.
The latest arrivals brought the three-day total to more than 2,400 trucks entering the enclave.
Throughout the 15-month war, the UN has described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic — facing problems with Israel’s military operation, access restrictions by Israel into and throughout Gaza and more recently looting by armed gangs.
Muhannad Hadi, the top UN aid official for Gaza and the West Bank, said there had been minor incidents of looting in the past three days, but “not like before.
“It’s not organised crime. Kids jumped on some trucks trying to take food baskets. There were some other people [who] tried to take some bottled water,” he told reporters after visiting the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday.
“Hopefully within few days this will all disappear once the people of Gaza realise that we will have aid enough for everybody.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 897 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
This compares with 630 on Sunday and 915 on Monday. The truce deal requires at least 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of those trucks are supposed to go to Gaza’s north, where experts have warned famine is imminent. DM
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