The Israeli military’s in “the first stages” of a sweeping operation in the West Bank, where Jenin and Tulkarm were raided Wednesday in an apparent effort to locate weapons and eradicate militants. The Al-Far’a refugee camp was also targeted.

A spokesman for the IDF said Israeli forces were “thwart[ing] terror” in a number of locales, where troops engaged armed Palestinians in gun battles, while drones buzzed overheard and bulldozers razed structures. Armored vehicles rumbled through the streets.

At least nine people were dead as of this writing. That’s on top of five killed in an airstrike on Tulkarm’s Nur Shams refugee camp earlier this week, and one dead in Bethlehem, where Israeli settlers shot several Palestinians.

Israeli media suggested the new operation could last days. It looked, to outside observers, like the largest coordinated raid on the West Bank since the Second Intifada.

On social media, Israel Katz likened the West Bank to Gaza. “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure” in the Strip, he said, on the way to suggesting Palestinians might be put under a “temporary” evacuation order in the impacted areas. Later, the IDF claimed it wasn’t aware of any plans to impose an evacuation, but said “If people wish to leave, they can leave.”

That’s not entirely true. Where, exactly, are they going to go? Yes, the options in that regard are infinitely better in the West Bank than they are in Gaza, but that’s a pretty low bar, and besides, there are bullets flying around. If there was a gun battle raging in the streets outside of your house, would you take your family out into the middle of it?

The rationale for the incursion centers around an uptick in attacks traced to northern towns in the West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarm, where Israel says Iran’s egging on excitable locals. Earlier this month, a bomber came within a few yards of killing dozens at a synagogue in Tel Aviv. Apparently, the explosive device detonated too soon, leaving the bomber as the only casualty. Hamas claimed that attack and warned of more to come.

There’s rampant speculation that militants in the West Bank intend to open yet another front in the war, aided and abetted by Tehran. The war in Gaza has pushed the West Bank occupation back into the international spotlight. The International Court of Justice last month declared Israel’s 57-year occupation a violation of international law, and said the Israelis should leave as quickly “as possible” and “provide full reparation” for decades of damages.

Once they were done seething, the Israelis laughed at the ICJ. Israel’s not leaving the West Bank. The opposite in fact. Just a few weeks prior to the ICJ’s advisory opinion, Bezalel Smotrich was caught on tape telling settlers that Israel had already annexed the territory and is just using the military as a front. In other words, it’s not a temporary military occupation, it’s a permanent civilian annexation, and it always was. That wasn’t exactly news to anyone, least of whom Palestinians, who’ve been living under this “temporary” arrangement for nearly six decades.

I suppose this is obvious, but just in case: Any kind of long-running military campaign that turns the West Bank into a full-on war zone would inflame international public opinion at an extraordinarily delicate juncture. The White House is desperate to get a ceasefire deal over the finish line and it’s far from clear that either party — Hamas or the Israeli government — is actually interested in any sort of peace.

The IDF operation in the West Bank comes just days after Israel launched a massive cross-border strike on Lebanon, where thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers were poised to deliver a retaliatory salvo following the assassination in Beirut of a key Hassan Nasrallah deputy. And there’s still palpable concern that Iran intends to attack Israel directly again as retribution for a spectacularly brazen Mossad operation that killed Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Access to Jenin and Tulkarm was reportedly sealed off Wednesday and Palestinian media said Israeli troops encircled at least two emergency facilities. “We’ve seen in recent times terrorists run to hospitals when they see our forces entering the cities,” the IDF explained.