Israel has sent tanks to the West Bank city of Jenin, in the first deployment of its kind in the area in more than two decades, as troops intensify operations in the territory that officials said will last at least a year.
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that the latest operation across the West Bank was expanding, and that troops would remain in the area’s urban hotspots “for the coming year”, meaning approximately 40,000 people displaced by the fighting will not be able to return to their homes.
The Israel Defense Forces said they were sending tanks to the northern city of Jenin for the first time since the height of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 2002.
Israel’s latest operation in the West Bank, launched two days after the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect on 19 January, has killed more than 50 people and ripped up roads and infrastructure in the territory’s refugee camps, set up to house Palestinians displaced after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Today the camps resemble urban slums, and have long functioned as bastions of armed resistance to the occupation.
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