Israel to remain in some West Bank refugee camps for ‘coming year’ as military expands campaign

The Israeli military is expanding its operations in the occupied West Bank and will remain in some refugee camps for the “coming year,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday.

Israel has been carrying out “Operation Iron Wall” – a military campaign focused on the northern West Bank which launched last month, just two days after the Gaza ceasefire began. At least 27 people have died in the offensive, the Palestinian health ministry says.

“I have instructed the IDF to prepare for a prolonged presence in the cleared camps for the coming year and to prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism,” Katz said in a statement.

The Israeli military meanwhile said Sunday that it was operating in “additional towns” in the Jenin area.

“Simultaneously, a tank platoon will begin operating in Jenin as part of the operational activity,” it added, the first time Israeli tanks have operated in the Palestinian territory since the end of the second intifada, or uprising, in 2005.

The Israeli military has launched regular incursions into Jenin and its refugee camps in recent years but has not established a permanent presence in the immediate area. Jenin came under Israeli occupation in 1967 but was put under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority in 1995 as a result of the Oslo Accords.

Since Hamas’ October 7 attack, Israel has engaged in an increasingly militarized campaign that it says targets West Bank militants, employing tactics like airstrikes that were once nearly unheard of there.

Katz said Sunday that the Israeli military is “conducting offensive operations to eliminate terrorist strongholds, neutralizing militants, and destroying terror infrastructure, buildings, and weapons caches on a large scale.”

He vowed to “continue clearing refugee camps and other terror hubs to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of radical Islam.”

“We will not return to the previous reality,” he said.

The Palestinian foreign ministry has dismissed such justifications as “pretexts” to bring the territory under Israeli control.