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Tel Aviv.-At least nine Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in what Israel calls an “anti-terrorist operation.”

Earlier, Palestinian officials said at least 11 people had been killed since the Israeli operation began at midnight local time.

It is believed to be the first time since the second Intifada (a major Palestinian uprising between 2000 and 2005) that several Palestinian towns have been attacked simultaneously.

The beginning of the Second Intifada coincided with the visit, on 28 September 2000, of the then Ariel Sharon, to the Esplanade of the Mosques, in East Jerusalem, a place claimed by Palestine.

This sparked a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli armed attacks.

Although Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for them to take place in several cities simultaneously.

In recent weeks, these operations have been concentrated mainly in the north of the territory, where armed groups fighting Israel are most active.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has cut short a trip to Saudi Arabia to monitor the situation in the West Bank, according to Palestinian media.

“Abbas cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia and returned to his homeland on Wednesday to follow the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression in the northern West Bank,” the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been “operating in full force since last night in the Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps to dismantle the Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructures established there.”

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani provided further details in an external post on X, saying that troops operating in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarm are carrying out “intelligence-led counter-terrorism operations” in an effort to prevent attacks on civilians.

This follows a joint statement shared earlier by Israeli officials, saying nine people were killed in the military operation.

The Israeli army announced that it had shelled the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem. The Palestinian Authority reported five deaths there.

One of them was identified as Jibril Jibril, a Palestinian released from an Israeli prison in November as part of the only truce in Gaza so far.

The Israeli army has ordered residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp in eastern Tulkarem to leave within four hours, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

According to the agency, PA security sources were informed that the IDF wants to place a military position in the al-Maslakh neighborhood in the countryside to interrogate residents before evacuation.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, the IDF has imposed a curfew in the eastern part of Jenin, preventing citizens from leaving their homes, while raiding some houses and questioning their inhabitants.

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has condemned the “increasingly military response” of Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank.

The UNHRC says the recent Israeli military operation in the West Bank is being carried out “in a manner that violates international law and risks further inflaming an already explosive situation.”

“Violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank does not constitute an armed conflict under international humanitarian law,” the statement said, adding that “the use of force in the West Bank must respect human rights law.”

Since Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank and launched a fierce war against the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have already been killed.

More than 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli army or settler attacks since October 7, according to an AFP tally based on official Palestinian data.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied to Hamas, denounced an “open war by the Israeli occupier.”

“With this aggression, which aims to shift the burden of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state on the ground in order to annex the West Bank,” he said.

Hamas, whose popularity has soared in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war while that of Abbas’s Fatah party has plummeted, again called on the three million Palestinians in the West Bank on Tuesday evening to “rise up” against the Israeli occupation.

The mediating countries between Israel and Hamas, Qatar, Egypt and the United States, are trying to achieve a ceasefire, in pitiful negotiations that have led nowhere, for the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

Following a recent round of talks in Cairo, an Israeli delegation arrived in Doha on Wednesday for “technical-level” talks with mediators, according to a source close to the negotiations.Clarín.