“Violates international law” –

Tensions are rising in the Middle East. The Israeli army, fresh from exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, has launched a major operation in four cities in the West Bank. “Nine armed terrorists” have been eliminated, the IDF said, which last night carried out coordinated attacks against Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem with bombings and raids by armored convoys, the likes of which, according to the al Quds network, have not been seen since the second Intifada in 2002. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported ten people killed overnight: two in Jenin, four in an attack on a car in a nearby village and four more in a refugee camp near the city of Tubas. About fifteen were wounded. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas interrupted a visit to Saudi Arabia to return to the West Bank and “follow the evolution of the Israeli aggression,” the official Palestinian agency Wafa reported.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the “escalating military response” of Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank. According to the OHCHR, Israeli military actions are being conducted in a manner that violates “international law” and risks “further inflaming” an “already explosive situation.” For the UN office, the situation in the West Bank “could dramatically deteriorate if Israeli security forces continue to systematically use unlawful lethal force.” Although Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, a simultaneous offensive on multiple cities is rare. In recent weeks, these operations have been concentrated mainly in the north of the territory, where militia groups are most active. “The army has been operating with all its forces since the night in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem to dismantle the Iranian Islamist terrorist infrastructure located there,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday, explicitly accusing Tehran of playing a role in the daily rocket fire against Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.