Israel sends tanks into Jenin as West Bank crackdown deepens
Event date: 2025-02-23
Israeli tanks entered the occupied West Bank on Sunday for the first time in decades, marking a sharp escalation in a military campaign that has already displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps in the north of the territory.
Associated Press journalists saw several tanks move into Jenin, a city long associated with Palestinian armed resistance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later confirmed that Israeli tanks had moved into the West Bank, while Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military had been ordered to intensify operations in refugee camps and prevent residents from returning.
Katz said troops would remain in parts of the West Bank for "the coming year" and described some camps as having been emptied of residents. Netanyahu said the deployment would continue "as long as needed". The AP report said about 40,000 Palestinians had fled urban refugee camps in the offensive and that it was not clear how long they would be kept from returning.
The move matters because tanks are rarely used in the West Bank, where Israel typically sends troops in for raids and then withdraws them. AP said tanks were last deployed there in 2002, during the second Palestinian uprising. The new deployment came as Israel expanded a weekslong crackdown it says is meant to stamp out militancy amid a rise in attacks.
Palestinians view the raids differently. The Palestinian foreign ministry called the operation a dangerous escalation and urged international intervention, saying Israel was deepening an illegal aggression. One displaced resident from Jenin, Mohamed al-Sadi, told AP that the camp still belonged to its residents and that they would return when they could.
The offensive sits inside a wider regional tension. AP reported that the Gaza ceasefire remained fragile and that Israel was delaying a prisoner release tied to the truce. Netanyahu also said Israel was ready to return to intense fighting if needed, underlining how the West Bank campaign is unfolding alongside unfinished negotiations over Gaza.
The military operation has already proved lengthy by historical standards. The U.N. says it is the longest such operation in the West Bank since the early 2000s uprising. AP also reported that more than 800 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the Gaza war began in October 2023, while Israel says most of the dead were militants.
The tank movement into Jenin signals that Israel is willing to use heavier force in areas it has frequently raided but not fully militarized in this way for more than two decades. It also raises the stakes for civilians in camps that have become central to the conflict over security, displacement and control of the occupied territory.
