Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed terrorist 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 West Bank.

It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of terrorist 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, Palestinian health services said, 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 armored bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.

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 weeks-long 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 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.

LEARNING FROM GAZA

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 launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by thousands of Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists. 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.

Israel considers Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that are backed by Iran as part of a multifront war waged by an axis that includes Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.