Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a rare visit to the Palestinian city of Tulkarem in the West Bank on Friday where he said that Israeli forces would step up an ongoing counterterror operation.

The site is one of the West Bank hubs of terrorism where the IDF is expected to step up operations after Thursday’s attempted bus bombings.

In the Tulkarem refugee camp, Netanyahu said that IDF forces “will launch additional operational activity against terror centers” in the wake of the detonation of bombs on four buses.

“In the past year, we have greatly increased our activity,” he said. “We are entering the terrorist strongholds, clearing entire streets used by terrorists, their homes. We are eliminating terrorists and commanders.”

Netanyahu also received a security briefing from the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, the head of the Civil Administration, and the commander of the Ephraim Brigade.

Days after the current ceasefire in Gaza took effect, Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the territory’s north dubbed the “Iron Wall,” spanning multiple refugee camps near the cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.

At least 51 Palestinians, including seven children, have been killed since the operation began and 40,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN.

Three Israeli soldiers have also been killed during the same period.

The operation is the longest the West Bank has seen since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

Netanyahu said the army was doing “very important work against Hamas and other terrorist organizations’ desire to harm us.”

He said that Israel had intensified its raids over the past year, fighting in camps it deems to contain Palestinian militant factions.

In Tulkarem, as in Jenin, the Israeli army has demolished dozens of homes with explosives, clearing entire roads through the densely built camps.

Armored D9 bulldozers have upturned tarmac, cut off the water supply by breaking pipes, and stripped buildings of their facades as they searched for buried explosive devices.

Palestinians on social media expressed shock at a photo shared by Netanyahu’s office showing him meeting with army officers in a command center that appeared to have been established inside a camp resident’s home.

The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority condemned in a statement the “storming by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… into the northern occupied West Bank refugee camp of Tulkarem.”

Netanyahu’s visit came after four buses exploded in Bat Yam late Thursday without causing any injuries.

A police commander from central Israel, Haim Sargarof, said in a televised briefing that the devices used to set off the blasts were similar to those found in the West Bank.

Violence in the West Bank has surged since war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.

Since October 7, 2023, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas.

According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 900 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 48 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.