Nine Palestinians were killed on Wednesday morning as the Israeli army launched a wide scale operation in the West Bank.

The IDF and Shin Bet intelligence agency said they struck “five terrorists in an operations room” in the area of Nur Shams in the northern West Bank.

The structure was used to conduct “terrorist activity and harm IDF soldiers operating in the area,” the army said, identifying one of those killed as Jibril Jasan Ismail Jibril who was released as part of the ceasefire agreement in November last year.

Islamic Jihad confirmed that its members were clashing with the IDF in Tulkarem and the Al-Far’a camp while the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigade said it confronted Israeli soldiers in both the Al-Far’a and Nour Shams camp.

Israeli media reported that the operation in the northern West Bank is expected to last several days, with a focus on the Tulkarem area, Jenin and the Far’a camp.

The military told the Times of Israel it believes a terror network which planned an attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Aug 18 had been operating from the Tulkarem area.

The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

It is the first time since the second intifada, a major uprising between 2000 and 2005, that several Palestinian cities have been targeted simultaneously.

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