As raids in the West Bank continue this morning, a Palestinian politician says Israel is attempting to "bring the war from Gaza to the West Bank".

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary general and co-founder of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party in the occupied West Bank, told the BBC News channel on Wednesday night that he fears this latest military operation constitutes a dangerous escalation.

"It is clear that the Israeli army is trying to bring the war from Gaza to the West Bank," Barghouti said.

"They are using military arsenal to attack people who are under occupation, which is a grave violation of course of international law," he added.

On Wednesday, external, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said the Israeli military's recent operation in the West Bank was being conducted "in a manner which violates international law and risks further enflaming an already explosive situation".

Israel maintains that its forces are targeting "terror groups and terror cells" in the West Bank.

The US has urged Israel to take "all feasible measures" to protect civilian lives in the West Bank, after Israeli forces launched a major operation in the north.

In a statement, a state department spokesperson says: "We recognise Israel’s very real security needs, which includes countering terrorist activity in the West Bank.

"At the same time, we continue to insist that Israeli authorities take measures to protect all civilians from harm."

It adds that the White House remains "deeply concerned about maintaining stability in the West Bank".

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Jerusalem

With the war in Gaza still raging, Israel’s biggest operation in the West Bank in some 20 years is causing international alarm.

"These dangerous developments are fuelling an already explosive situation," the head of the UN says.

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, warned against a "war extension from Gaza".

Palestinians say there have been casualties and damage to homes and infrastructure in Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Tubas.

The Israeli military describes it as a "counter-terrorism operation" and says it has made arrests and found weapons and sites used by Palestinian armed groups - including a command room and an explosives lab in a mosque.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has called for an immediate end to Israel's operation in the occupied West Bank.

In a post on X, Guterres says the latest developments in the West Bank "are deeply concerning".

"I strongly condemn the loss of lives, including of children, and I call for an immediate cessation of these operations," he says.

Image source, Reuters

This morning, external, the Israeli security forces say they killed “five armed terrorists" who were "hiding in a mosque" - in an operation carried out near the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

In a joint statement, external from Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Shin Bet domestic security agency and Israel Border Police, it says Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in a "firefight".

The IDF says one of the people killed in the West Bank overnight was the head of a local "terrorist organisation" in Nur Shams, Muhhamad Jabber.

It adds that one of the Israeli officers involved in the exchange was slightly injured and was taken to hospital for medical treatment.

Welcome back to our coverage on the ongoing operation by Israeli forces in the north of the occupied West Bank.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says its troops have killed five Palestinian "terrorists", who they say were hiding in a mosque in the city of Tulkarm.

That comes after at least nine were killed in Israeli raids in several cities in the West Bank on Wednesday.

The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, has called for an immediate end to Israel's operation, calling it "deeply concerning".

There has been an increase in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then, with Israel saying it is trying to stem attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

We'll bring you live updates and analysis here throughout the day, so stay with us.

As night falls here, Palestinians will wonder what's nextpublished at 17:40 British Summer Time 28 August

17:40 BST 28 August

Jon Donnison
Reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank

In a Middle East that is already fraught with tension, this is another dangerous moment.

Israel’s most widespread military operation in the occupied West Bank is ongoing with reports in the last hour of fierce gun battles between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the northern city of Jenin.

Israel has called it a "counter-terrorism operation", but civilians are being caught up in the violence.

As night falls, many in the region will be watching nervously to see where it goes from here.

Palestinians will fear more Israeli raids and drone strikes overnight. Tomorrow, there will be funerals for those who were killed today.

It’s another potential flashpoint.

The fear is that the war in Gaza, which has been going on for almost a year, could spread into a wider regional conflict.

Image source, Getty Images

We'll soon pause our live coverage of Israel's military operations in the West Bank - the most widespread in the territory since the second intifada at the start of the millennium.

Before then, here's what you need to know:

• At midnight, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched raids in four Palestinian cities - Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus and Tubas - killing at least nine people, with Hamas saying six of its fighters died in Jenin
• There have been gun battles between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters, and eyewitness reports of Israeli forces surrounding hospitals in the targeted cities
• Israel's foreign minister labelled it a counter-terrorism operation to thwart what he called "Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructures" in the West Bank
• The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) condemned Israeli security force's "increasingly military response" in the occupied territory
• Meanwhile in Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 58 people had been killed in the past day, taking the death toll there to more than 40,500

To read more about what happened today, head here.

This page was written by Johanna Chisholm, Emily McGarvey, Adam Durbin, Matt Spivey, Rachel Flynn, Gabriela Pomeroy and Barbara Tasch. It was edited by Aoife Walsh, Francesca Gillett and Sam Hancock.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, Getty Images

An official with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in the West Bank says teams there have been facing difficulties reaching injured people and transporting them to hospitals.

Ahmad Jibril says Israeli troops surrounding hospitals and the "exposure of crews to attacks" is slowing the work of paramedics, citing "what happened today to the medical point in al-Far'a camp".

The PRCS said earlier that Israeli soldiers today briefly entered their medical facility in the camp near Tubas, detaining workers and cutting off communication with them.

The humanitarian organisation later said that soldiers assaulted the centre's director and fired shots inside the building before withdrawing.

The Israeli military said it had been conducting a "counter terrorism operation" in the al-Fara area and during it "conducted a routine examination of several minutes on the medical teams that came to evacuate the injured".

"Claims regarding an attack on the medical staff or a medical facility are false and lack any foundation," the IDF added.

The European Union's high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell Fontelles, has expressed concern about what he calls Israel's "repeated violations of the status quo of the holy sites" in Jerusalem.

In a social media post he says holy sites are "under continued threat" including from Israel's far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Ben-Gvir recently led hundreds of Jewish Israelis into Jerusalem’s most contested holy site - the al-Aqsa Mosque - with many defying the Israeli government’s long-standing ban on Jewish prayer there.

Known to Jews as Temple Mount, the site in occupied East Jerusalem is a holy place for both Muslims and Jews. It was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.

Under the status quo since then, Jordan was allowed to continue its historical role as custodian of the site, while Israel assumed control of security and access. The Israeli PM’s office previously said there had been no change to the status quo agreement.

Away from the updates from the West Bank for a moment, a Bedouin Arab hostage who was yesterday rescued from an underground tunnel in Gaza has returned home.

Kaid Farhan Elkadi, 52, was rescued on Tuesday, the Israeli military said, after he was kidnapped by Hamas during the 7 October attack on Israel.

In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from hospital, Elkadi says he has been "waiting for this moment" but said "there are other people waiting".

Pictures show the father of 11 returning home to his village near Rahat in southern Israel.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Jerusalem

We've just made contact with a local journalist near Tubas, who describes the situation in al-Far'a camp as "strangely quiet" despite the presence of Israeli troops.

He says there is "no gunfire or explosions" that he can hear, but that "drones are still in the sky".

He adds that Israeli soldiers are "raiding houses" in the area and taking people for questioning at a military checkpoint.

As we reported earlier, the Israel Defense Forces say that "four armed terrorists" were killed in an aerial "counter-terrorism operation" overnight.

"The forces confiscated weapons and exposed and dismantled explosives that were planted under the roads in the area," the IDF said.

Image source, Getty Images

We're seeing pictures now of the damage and debris left behind after raids in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm, located in the north of the West Bank and one of the cities where Israel says it is carrying out its "counter-terrorism operation".

One man, who spoke to the BBC, says people would usually leave the camp ahead of Israeli operations, but this time "it caught us by surprise".

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

On 7 October, Hamas crossed from Gaza into Israel and killed around 1,200 people - 250 others were taken hostage.

Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and ground invasion into Gaza, where Hamas are based, resulting in more than 40,000 Palestinians being killed.

Tensions in the West Bank - which has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Middle East war - were already simmering before the Gaza war began, particularly in Jenin where a new generation of armed groups was emerging.

Last Wednesday, the UN said 607 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since 7 October. Fifteen Israelis were killed by Palestinians in the territory during the same period.

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas - in charge of a chunk of the West Bank - has warned that the escalating Israeli raids will "lead to dire and dangerous results".

Israel has built about 160 settlements, housing some 700,000 Jews, since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want as part of a future state - in the 1967 Middle East war.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

It can be tricky to understand so our visual journalism colleagues have mapped it out, which you can see below. The four cities where Israel has carried out raids today are also marked with black dots:

In the last hour, the US has announced new sanctions affecting some Jewish settlers in the West Bank over violence against Palestinians.

The US issued its first sanctions against settlers in February this year - a rare step - and later went on to sanction more., external

Today, the US State Department says it is now sanctioning Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli non-governmental organisation that provides material support to several of those already sanctioned.

It is also sanctioning Yitzhak Levi Filant, the security coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement near Nablus, because he has "engaged in malign activities" and led a group of armed settlers to attack Palestinians "and forcefully expel them from their lands", the US says.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says Israel needs to hold those who commit settler violence more accountable.

The armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, has confirmed in a statement that six of its fighters have been killed in Jenin today.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it had killed three "armed terrorists" in Jenin in an air strike, with two more killed by ground forces in the area of Jenin and Tulkarm.

Image source, EPA

Israel's action in the West Bank is an "operation against Iranian weapons and terror organisations", the former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus has told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

Conricus - who is now a fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies think tank - says explosives, assault rifles and pistols are being smuggled into the West Bank through the Jordanian border.

"Iran is flooding the West Bank with weapons," he says.

Today's raids, he says, are Israel "defending itself against Palestinian terrorists. It is a very dangerous situation for Israeli citizens."

What next? The fear here is that it could be more fightingpublished at 15:07 British Summer Time 28 August

15:07 BST 28 August

Jon Donnison
Reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank

It’s just over a week since the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel in his efforts to try to de-escalate tensions and ensure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza.

He called for all players in the region to avoid provocative actions.

After the weekend’s dramatic escalation in violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinians and much of the Arab world will see today’s wide-scale Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank as a provocation.

Nothing on this scale has been seen in two decades, since the second Palestinian intifada or uprising.

Israel says it is determined to deal with what it calls the "threat" from Palestinian militants in the West Bank. It’s already fighting on two fronts: in Gaza and on its northern border with Lebanon.

The fear here is that war could come to the West Bank, too.

Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party, has just been telling the BBC that today’s events in the West Bank suggest the "Israeli army is trying to bring the war... from Gaza to the West Bank".

"What you see here is a unilateral war by a huge Israeli army with air force attacking basically civilian population in the West Bank," Barghouti says, accusing Israel of violating international law.

He also claims the Israeli military has issued evacuation orders to people in Nur Shams refugee camp - something that has not been confirmed. Our colleagues in Jerusalem have spoken to three people in the camp who say there are no evacuation orders that they are aware of, but that they have been given a time period in which they can leave the camp, passing through a military checkpoint, if they choose to.

"It’s exactly like they have done in Gaza," Barghouti says of Israel, "where they’ve forced people to be displaced and to leave their homes and become refugees again."