Israeli tanks in West Bank for first time in more than two decades amid tensions over ceasefire agreement with Hamas

The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has been speaking at the UN human rights council in Geneva.

“I am gravely concerned by the rising violence in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers and other violations, as well as calls for annexation,” Guterres said, as he urged for the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel to remain intact.

The ministry of foreign affairs and expatriates warns of the Israeli occupation army’s deployment of heavy tanks around Jenin, viewing it as a prelude to expanding its crimes against the Palestinian people – particularly in the northern West Bank and its refugee camps.

This escalation comes as Israeli ‘defence’ minister Israel Katz boasts that the Israeli occupation army will prevent displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes and has ordered an extended military presence in the area. Israeli occupation forces have already forcibly displaced 40,000 Palestinians from refugee camps in the northern West Bank. The ministry views these developments – including Katz’s statements, the deployment of tanks, and the deliberate intimidation of defenceless civilians- as a grave escalation in the West Bank and a flagrant attempt to entrench genocide and forced displacement against our unarmed people.