IDF: Iron Wall anti-terror operation expanded to Nur A-Shams

The IDF has expanded Operation Iron Wall, which began in the Jenin area and has since been broadened to the Tulkarm area, to the Nur A-Shams refugee camp near the Green Line, according to a report today (Sunday) by Channel 14 News reporter Hallel Bitton Rosen.

Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that "IDF forces are expanding Operation "Iron Wall" in northern Samaria today to include the Nur a-Shams refugee camp. We are crushing the terrorist infrastructure in the refugee camps and preventing its return. We will not allow the Iranian axis of evil to establish an eastern terror front that would threaten the settlements of Samaria and the seam line, as well as major population centers in Israel."

As the IDF withdraws from the Netzarim corridor in the Gaza Strip as part of the hostage agreement, it is expanding its anti-terror operations in Judea and Samaria, especially in northern Samaria.

Operation Iron Wall, which began against terrorist groups in the Jenin area, has since been expanded to Tulkarm and now encompasses much of the area.

According to Defense Minister Israel Katz, the goal of the operation is for the Jenin operation to be a "model" for similar operations not only in northern Samaria, but in Judea and Samaria in general.

Katz said that the IDF had learned from its mistakes and experience fighting in the Gaza Strip, saying that the army needs to move from "mowing the grass" by weakening but not destroying terrorist concentrations and organizations to a much more thorough root and branch effort aimed at extirpating terrorist groups entirely.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, called Iron Wall part of Israel's general effort against the Iranian axis wherever it presented itself - in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere.

The ceasefire in the north continues to hold firm, as does the ceasefire in the south. The IDF is fully withdrawing from the Netzarim corridor bisecting the Gaza Strip, and will fully withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, as well, if Israel proceeds to carry out the second phase of the hostage deal.

Substantial IDF forces are still present in both areas, ready to renew military operations if and when the ceasefire falls apart for any number of possible reasons.