For the first in more than two decades IDF tanks are operating in the West Bank. Associated Press journalists saw several tanks move along unpaved tracks into Jenin, AP reported on Feb. 23. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to “increase the intensity of the activity to thwart terrorism” in all refugee camps in the West Bank. “We will not allow the return of residents, and we will not allow terrorism to return and grow,” he said. Earlier, Katz said he had instructed the military to prepare for “an extended stay” in some of the West Bank’s urban refugee camps, from where he said about 40,000 Palestinians have fled, leaving the areas “emptied of residents.”
AP notes that tanks were last deployed in the territory in 2002, when Israel fought a deadly Palestinian uprising.
