Israeli army carries out rare airstrike on West Bank city of Jenin

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army said on Friday that it carried out a airstrike targeting “several terrorists” in the West Bank city of Jenin.In a brief statement, the army said Israeli warplanes had “precisely struck” several people in the city.It provided no further details about the identities of those targeted or the outcome of the rare airstrike on West Bank.There was no immediate response by Palestinian sources regarding casualties resulting from the reported strike.The West Bank, home to the Palestinian Authority, has seen soaring violence by Israeli settlers but has mostly avoided the Israeli military airstrikes that have devastated the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.In early 2025, the military launched a wide-ranging operation targeting refugee camps in the northern West Bank that it said was aimed at cracking down on Palestinian armed groups.In February of that year, it deployed tanks in Jenin, which is known as a hotbed of Palestinian militancy.The large-scale operation has caused the displacement of nearly 40,000 people from the camps, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.Meanwhile, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has unveiled a plan to “Judaize” the Negev in southern Israel and Galilee in the north by bringing 1 million Jews to the two areas, following what he described as a “settlement revolution” in the occupied West Bank.Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, published the plan Thursday evening on the party’s website under the title “Yes. Judaizing!”“The settlement revolution in Judea and Samaria is coming to the Negev and Galilee,” Smotrich said, using Israel’s term for the occupied West Bank.He said the plan seeks to apply the “concept of action” used in the occupied West Bank to the Negev and Galilee.The plan includes establishing 20 new settlements in Galilee and another 20 in the Negev, along with dozens of farms and measures to facilitate migration to areas he described as “strategic,” with the stated goal of bringing 1 million additional Jewish residents to the two regions.