"On the directive of the Security Cabinet, the IDF, the ISA, and the Israel Police have today begun a...military operation to defeat terrorism in Jenin," Netanyahu said.

The West Bank city of Jenin was the target of an ongoing Israeli "anti-terror" operation that claimed the lives of at least 10 Palestinians and injured as many as 40 others.

At least 10 people have been killed in the raids, and more than 40 wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Dozens have been arrested, Palestinian officials told the Wafa news agency.

A Palestinian official said hundreds of people began leaving their homes in a flashpoint area of the West Bank on Thursday as Israeli forces pressed a deadly operation there.The Israeli military launched this week a raid in the Jenin area,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the assault on Jenin would be “extensive and significant,” as the military erected new checkpoints across the West Bank.

The official reason for the clampdown given by the idf was a spate of shootings and stabbings in recent weeks, in the West Bank and in Tel Aviv, and explosive devices hidden on the roads which killed and wounded Israeli civilians and troops.

As the world celebrates the fragile ceasefire halting the war in Gaza, a new round of violence broke out in the West Bank, leaving dozens of casualties. Israeli military officials announced a “counterterrorism operation” across the West Bank,