JENIN, Occupied West Bank (Dispatches) — Israeli forces have intensified their campaign of raids, assassinations, and bombings across the occupied West Bank, as war minister Israel Katz ordered the military to “take all necessary measures” against what he called “terrorists” — a phrase Palestinians say has become shorthand for a policy of mass killings and destruction.
The latest escalation came hours after Israeli troops, backed by air power, assassinated three Palestinian resistance fighters near Jenin on Tuesday morning. The men — identified as Abdullah Jalamneh, 27, Ahmad Nasharti, 29, and Qais al-Baitawi, 21 — were members of the Jenin Brigade of the Islamic Jihad’s Quds Brigades. 
Israeli forces surrounded a cave in the village of Kafr Qud where the fighters had been sheltering, killing two by sniper fire before a warplane bombed the site, killing the third.
Katz later declared that Israeli forces would maintain a permanent presence in Jenin, Tulkarem, and the Nour Shams refugee camp. His remarks signaled a new phase in Israel’s expanding military aggression — one marked by the use of fighter jets, drones, and heavy artillery inside densely populated Palestinian towns.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) condemned the assassinations, calling the use of snipers and airstrikes in residential areas “evidence of the occupation’s brutality and criminality.”
Tuesday’s killings follow months of relentless atrocities that have turned large parts of Jenin and Tulkarem into ruins. Since January, Israel’s military has displaced tens of thousands of civilians, bulldozed neighborhoods, and destroyed infrastructure in what rights groups describe as collective punishment. Residents remain barred from returning home.
While Gaza clings to a fragile ceasefire after more than a year of genocidal warfare that killed tens of thousands, the West Bank has become the next front in Israel’s campaign of domination. Armed settlers, emboldened by the far-right regime, continue to attack Palestinians and seize land, as Israel accelerates settlement expansion and prepares de facto annexation of occupied territory.
Resistance groups have responded with escalating operations targeting Israeli convoys and outposts. The Jenin Brigade said its fighters used improvised explosives against invading forces in Qabatiya on Monday, claiming “confirmed hits.”
Israeli intelligence services claim to have intercepted several weapons shipments allegedly sent to West Bank factions. But for Palestinians, the immediate reality is one of relentless bombardment, night raids, and executions — a campaign of death and destruction that has turned the occupied West Bank into yet another open-air war zone, even as Gaza bleeds under a tenuous truce.