At least nine people have died in the biggest Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank for 20 years. Last month, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's continued occupation of the area, captured in 1967, breached international law. Violence has been increasing in the West Bank since the Hamas attacks of October the seventh, with the UN saying more than 650 Palestinians have been killed and that there's been violence against Israelis. This The latest massive operation involved Israeli forces simultaneously entering the cities of Janine, Tulkam, Nablus, and Toubas in what the defense forces called a counterterrorism strike. From Janine, Lucy Williamson sent this report.

It was a message of force delivered quietly at first. Israeli soldiers seeking their targets, street by Palestinian Street. By morning, hundreds troops, backed by armored bulldozers, had arrived in the refugee camps of Tultcarrim, Nablus, Tabas, Janine, home to armed Palestinian groups and unarmed civilians. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed. Hamas says six of them were its fighters. Massoud Najjar said he was injured when he opened the door of his house to young men asking for water.

We It felt like something came down on us from the sky and there was an explosion. I was unaware of what was going on. When I put my hand on my chest, it was all shrapnel and blood.

In Janine, army vehicles surrounded the city's two main hospitals. Ambulances, stopped and checked by military jeeps. Israel's foreign minister has urged his government to use Gaza as a model for dealing with armed groups here, saying that Iran was backing them and that this was a war for everything that Israel must win.

The IDF and our security forces are operating in Tukharam, Janine, and other places from which murderous attacks have been launched. We will fight to eliminate terrorism wherever it emerges.

Almost 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces since the Hamas attacks. But fighters here are still presenting Israel with new tactics and new threats.

Israel's army has been targeting the same areas in the same cities, week after week for the past 10 months, determined to dismantle the armed Palestinian groups based here. Now it's launched a wider, more coordinated operation across the West Bank on a scale not seen for 20 years.

In Al Farah camp near Toubas, mobile phone footage showed and Red Crescent staff lined up against the wall of their compound in front of Israeli troops. Arriving in Janine today, the West Bank head of the Red Crescent.

You've had 10 months of these sorts of incursions. How worried are you by what's happening today?

I'm very much worried because it seems there's a new stage. They are scaling up their operation. When they talk about evacuating civilians and using the Air Force to bombing the camps, this reminds us of Gaza.

As night fell, explosions and gunfire from Janine's refugee camp. Dusk can be a signal to test the army's control. The war in Gaza is changing this conflict. An old front creating new fears in the face of a regional war. Lucy Williamson, BBC CBC News, Janine.

Jeremy Bowen is with me, our international editor. Jeremy, another escalation in this region.

West Bank at boiling point. Now, if you listen to what Israel says. They say it's all about Iran. Iran is behind an increase in Palestinian violence, armed groups. Well, it's no secret that Iran does support Palestinian armed groups. Someone has to pay for their weaponry. There's no question about that. But why escalate now when Israel has been hitting these same places for months and months and months and arresting thousands of people, killing hundreds? Well, the root of it is, of course, the long conflict over control of the land between Israelis and Palestinians. There's politics as well. Netanyahu has said very emphatically, there will never be a Palestinian state. The Palestinians want this land. The West Bank is a big part of theirs. I think by doing this, Prime Minister Netanyahu is weakening the Palestinian authority which does want a Palestinian state and which the Americans say should be a big part of the future, not just in the West Bank, but in Gaza, which, again, that is something Netanyahu is very much against. So weakening his enemies there in the Palestinian state, and also today as well. Part of the growth of violence has been the activities of armed settlers.

The Americans sanctioned a settler group and a notorious settler leader today saying, Extremist settler violence causes intense human suffering and is bad for Israel's security. Now, last point, really, that the Israeli government's position is that all this land is Jewish land. Palestinians disagree. They want it as part of their state. But what's happening right now is that it's on fire.