Live Briefing: Israel ramps up operations in West Bank after bus explosions
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to conduct 'an intensive operation' in the occupied West Bank after three empty buses in central Israel exploded in what officials said was a suspected terrorist attack.
No one was injured in the attack, which involved a total of five explosives, three of which detonated on buses in parking lots in the city of Bat Yam, a suburb of Tel Aviv, according to police and local officials. Explosives were also discovered and neutralized in a parking lot in Holon, a nearby city.
'The bus event tonight should be treated like a mega attack. We must not look at the outcome, but at the intent,' said Benny Gantz, a centrist Israeli politician and former defense minister.
After the blasts, Hamas's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said that 'the revenge for our martyrs will not be forgotten as long as the occupier remains on our land.' The statement was attributed to the West Bank-based Tulkarm Battalion.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered Israeli troops to intensify counterterrorism operations in the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces said it had deployed three additional battalions to the area.
Israel last month launched a major West Bank operation that has killed at least 25 people in the Jenin area and displaced thousands of civilians, according to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli military and the United Nations.
Hamas released four bodies Thursday that it said were hostages, including the remains of a mother and her two young children, members of the Bibas family, whose story came to symbolize the brutality of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
However, while an Israeli forensic analysis overnight identified the bodies of the two children, Ariel and Kfir, the Israel Defense Forces said the third body received is not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas. 'No match was found for any other hostage. This is an anonymous, unidentified body,' the IDF said in a statement.
'This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization,' the IDF said.
The fourth body was that of hostage Oded Lifshitz, whose family confirmed that his remains had been identified.
Earlier Thursday, in Israel, the exchange was marked with somber gatherings. Onlookers and senior Israeli officials alike described the national mood as one of deep anguish. The deaths of Shiri Bibas and her sons — Ariel, who was 4 years old, and Kfir, who was 8½ months old at the time of the abduction — had been suspected for months.
JENIN, West Bank — The Palestinian Authority recently took a high-stakes gamble in this restive city, launching a major military operation aimed at clipping the wings of militant groups that had grown in influence and audacity.
If the operation succeeded, Palestinian security forces would demonstrate they could maintain order not only in the parts of the West Bank they nominally control but also, if given the chance, perhaps in Gaza as well. The role of the Palestinian Authority in governing Gaza is very much a live question as foreign powers and Arab states now debate the future of the war-torn enclave.
But the six-week campaign in Jenin, which lost momentum after Israeli forces intervened last month, ultimately came up badly short and exposed some of the challenges the authority would face in securing Gaza. While the security forces arrested dozens of Iranian-backed fighters, high-profile militants remain at large.
The clashes highlighted how poorly equipped the Palestinian Authority security forces are compared with the groups they are seeking to subdue. The campaign also underlined questions about how far Palestinians would go to fight fellow Palestinians and whether the authority could maintain its popular legitimacy if it did so. Moreover, the events in Jenin revealed how Israel's actions, which include its own withering attacks on targets in the city, undermine the ability of the Palestinian Authority to exert its control.
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