At least 9 dead in major Israeli attack on occupied West Bank | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Israel is deploying hundreds of soldiers and air force in the attack, which has been described in the media as the largest since 2002.

According to Palestinian health authorities and media, at least nine people were killed after Israel launched a large-scale ground and air strike on the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent's ambulance department told Al Jazeera that four people were killed in an Israeli attack on the Far'a refugee camp in Tubas early on Wednesday morning. Several other people were injured, but the Red Crescent said its teams were struggling to reach them because Israeli forces were blocking ambulances from entering the area.

Two people were also killed in an Israeli attack on Jenin, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, while three others were killed when their vehicle was hit by an Israeli drone in the nearby village of Seir.

Official Israeli broadcaster reported that hundreds of soldiers and air force personnel were involved in the military attack, the largest operation in the occupied West Bank since 2002. Channel 14 said the operation had been planned for weeks.

Middle East political analyst Omar Baddar said the action appeared to be part of a longer-term Israeli strategy to “ethnically cleanse” Palestinian territories.

“I think the context is remarkable, namely the fact that Israel has had the intention of annexing and ethnically cleansing large parts of the West Bank for a very, very long time,” Baddar told Al Jazeera.

“I think they [Israeli forces] “We saw an opportunity to escalate the situation in the West Bank because the world is distracted by the horror that Israel is unleashing in Gaza. So what we have seen in recent months is that more than 650 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers throughout the West Bank,” he said.

Armed Palestinian groups said they were fighting Israeli forces in the Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps.

The al-Quds Brigades said its “fighters attacked an enemy infantry unit in the Nur Shams camp with a high explosive device.” The Qassam Brigades said they “detonated locally manufactured high explosive devices in Jenin against the invading military vehicles” and that their fighters were “involved in violent clashes with the occupation forces.”