TEHRAN - Israel has launched a large-scale military operation in the West Bank amid growing pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his failed military strategy in the Gaza Strip. 

Since a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect at the weekend, Israel has ramped up brutal attacks in the West Bank. 

On Wednesday, the Israeli army continued raids in the flashpoint city of Jenin for the second consecutive day.  A day earlier, Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians in the city. 

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has condemned the Israeli assault.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the systematic displacement, destruction and killing carried out by the [Israeli] army against the Jenin camp and its people,” the movement said. 

The resistance group also blamed the Palestinian Authority for the deadly violence.

“We hold the authority in Ramallah and its security services responsible for participating and colluding in this aggression, after they provided [Israel] with services in imposing a siege on the Jenin camp,” it said, according to Al Jazeera. 

Israeli settlers have also intensified attacks against Palestinians under the protection of the regime’s army. 

According to the Wafa news agency, dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Khirbet Aqwiwis and assaulted residents.

The Palestinian news outlet added that the settlers beat and pepper-sprayed the residents. It said a number of Palestinians, including elderly residents, were hospitalized with head wounds and fractures.

The growing Israeli violence comes as Netanyahu is trying to obscure his failure to meet his military goals in the war on Gaza. 

Israel signed the truce deal with Hamas after it failed to defeat the group following 15 months of a war that left more than 47,000 Palestinians dead. 

On Tuesday, Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, announced that he will resign over his role in failing to prevent the Al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise military operation carried out by

Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The Hamas attack was followed by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. 

Halevi’s resignation resulted in increasing demands for the Israeli prime minister to resign.

“I salute…Herzi Halevi. Now let the prime minister and his entire disastrous government take responsibility and resign,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said. 

Other Israeli opposition figures made a similar call. 

Apart from Israel’s attempts to distract from its military setbacks in Gaza, the regime’s fresh attacks in the West Bank have highlighted its expansionist agenda. 

Israel is planning to annex the entire West Bank. Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967. Over the past years, it has expanded settlements in the Palestinian territory. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law.  

President Donald Trump’s pick to be the United States ambassador to the United Nations has backed Israel’s expansionist agenda in the West Bank. 

She has claimed that Israel has “biblical” dominion over the occupied West Bank.