The Cosmic Watchdog

TEL AVIV — Hours after President Donald Trump rescinded American sanctions on far-right settler groups and individuals accused of involvement in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s military said it had launched a “significant” operation in the territory.

Israeli forces moved into the northern city of Jenin in an offensive that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was launched to “defeat terrorism.” Health authorities in the region said at least seven people were killed and dozens injured.

It came after his military said “Israeli civilians,” some of them masked, had attacked a Palestinian village Monday night before they turned on their own soldiers.

Introduced by the Biden administration in February, Executive Order 14115 saw sanctions imposed on “persons undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank.”

But in a major policy reversal, the White House website said Monday that Trump had done away with the measures, which barred Americans from dealing with both Israeli settlers and entities associated with them while freezing their U.S. assets.

It came after Trump described Gaza as a “phenomenal location” as he signed a series of executive orders in the Oval Office, shortly after his presidential inauguration ceremony.

The decision to rescind the sanctions came a day after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect, bringing a pause to Israel’s 15-month military offensive in Gaza. After phase one of the deal began Sunday, three Israeli women held hostage by Hamas were released in exchange for 90 Palestinian teenagers and women who were imprisoned or detained by Israel.

During his first term, Trump abandoned the long-held U.S. position that the settlements are illegal before it was restored by then-President Joe Biden.

Trump’s reversal was welcomed by ultranationalist Israeli politicians including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned from his role as justice minister after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government voted to accept the ceasefire agreement.

Calling the sanctions “blatant foreign interference in the internal affairs of the State of Israel,” Smotrich said Tuesday in a post on X, that they had “harmed” relations between the United States and Israel. Ben-Gvir also took to X where he praised the “righting of an injustice.”

Much of the world’s attention has focused on the Gaza Strip during the 15 months of conflict, which began Oct. 7, 2023, when Israeli officials say 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage in Hamas’ multipronged attacks on Israel, marking a major escalation in a decadeslong conflict.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 47,000 people since then, according to health officials in the enclave, though researchers have estimated that the death toll could be significantly higher.

In the year leading up to the Hamas attacks, 253 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank according to a database kept by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

Violence by settlers and Israeli military operations have soared since then and in the months leading up to Jan. 15, the database shows 828 Palestinians have been killed in the territory.

In the year leading up to the Hamas attacks, 33 Israelis were killed in the West Bank, the database shows. Between that date and Jan. 6, the last date it was updated, it shows that 28 have been killed.

Within hours of Monday’s announcement from the White House, the Israeli military said in a statement that dozens of “Israeli civilians,” some of them masked, raided the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq. There, they “instigated riots, set property on fire and caused damage,” the statement said.

Troops were dispatched to the scene where they were attacked by Israelis, some of whom threw rocks, the statement added.

A joint investigation into the incident had been opened by the Department of Internal Police Investigations and the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division, the statement said.

Asked Tuesday whether any of those involved were arrested and charged, the IDF referred NBC News to the Israel Police. The police force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday that the IDF, police and the country’s domestic security agency known as the Shin Bet had launched an “extensive and significant military operation” to “defeat terrorism” in Jenin, a city in the West Bank’s north, calling the offensive “Iron Wall.”

Palestinian health officials said in a statement that at least seven people were killed and around 35 injured as a result of the operation.

Referring to the region as Judea and Samaria, the biblical names for the West Bank, Smotrich said in a separate statement that the operation would help to “change the security perception” about the region.

The operation was launched after the United Nations Human Rights Office said in a statement Monday that it was “alarmed by a wave of renewed violence perpetrated by settlers and Israeli security forces in the Occupied West Bank.”

“This has been accompanied by increased restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement across the West Bank, including complete closure of some checkpoints and installation of new gates, effectively confining entire communities,” it added.

Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River since the 1967 Middle East war, building and expanding Jewish settlements there that most countries consider illegal, an assertion Israel rejects.