Jenin (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians in a large-scale operation Monday in the occupied West Bank in what the army labelled an “extensive counterterrorism effort” involving drone strikes and hundreds of troops.

The raid launched under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government targeted the northern city of Jenin and was the biggest in the West Bank for years, featuring armoured vehicles, army bulldozers and drones.

Firefights and explosions rocked the city and adjacent refugee camp, a militant stronghold, as Palestinians threw rocks at soldiers and smoke from blasts and burning barricades darkened the sky, an AFP correspondent said.

“There is bombing from the air and an invasion on the ground,” said Mahmoud al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin.

“Several houses and sites have been bombed… smoke is rising from everywhere.”

Eight people were killed and 50 wounded, 10 seriously, the Palestinian health ministry said – exceeding the toll of seven dead in an Israeli raid in Jenin two weeks ago which saw the rare use of helicopter missile fire.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said the Israeli army had launched “an open war against the people of Jenin”.

Monday’s operation featured “brigade-level” troop numbers, said army spokesman Richard Hecht, while Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told reporters that “we are striking the terrorism hub with great strength”.

The army said soldiers and gunmen exchanged fire at a mosque in the Jenin camp and that weapons and explosives were later found in the building.

Jenin resident Badr Shagoul told AFP: “I saw them taking bulldozers into the camp, they were destroying buildings … These were people’s homes.”

At a hospital morgue some bodies were covered in blankets and others were heavily bandaged, an AFP correspondent reported, adding that the fighting continued late Monday.

“We have many injured from explosives dropped from airplanes and many having bullet injuries,” nurse Qasem Benighader said.

“In the last five years this is the worst raid.”

Israel had already stepped up operations in the northern West Bank, which has seen a recent spate of attacks on Israelis as well as Jewish settler violence targeting Palestinians.

Jenin camp resident Mahmoud Hawashin called the situation “catastrophic”, and predicted that “for every action there is a reaction.

“If there is more Palestinian blood shed, there will be more Israeli blood shed.”

- ‘All options open’ -

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said “all options are open to strike the enemy in response to its aggression in Jenin”.

In a separate incident, Israeli fire killed a Palestinian youth near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The army said that in Jenin it had struck a “joint operations centre” of a group called the Jenin Brigade, a weapons depot, an “observation and reconnaissance” site and a hideout for alleged attackers of Israeli targets.

“People were aware that we were probably going in”, Hecht told reporters, “but the method of striking from the air”, in the core of the camp, “basically caught them by surprise”.

He said troops remained inside the camp but were after “specific targets” and “not trying to hold ground”.

“We are still seizing weapons and ammunitions,” Hecht said, adding that the operation had no specific timeline.

The Arab League said it will convene an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss “an Arab mobilisation to counter the Israeli attack on Jenin”.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has worsened since last year, and escalated further under the Netanyahu coalition government that includes extreme-right allies.

The Jenin area is nominally controlled by president Mahmud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.

- ‘Clear violation’ -

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.

The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want Israel to withdraw from all land it occupied in 1967 and to dismantle all Jewish settlements.

However, Netanyahu has pledged to “strengthen settlements” and expressed no interest in reviving peace talks, moribund since 2014.

Jordan called the raid “a clear violation of international humanitarian law, as well as Israel’s obligations as the occupying power”.

After last month’s Jenin raid, four Israelis were killed by two Palestinian gunmen near the West bank settlement of Eli. The assailants were shot dead.

That same week, Israel said a drone strike killed three members of a “terrorist cell” in the West Bank.

At least 185 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed this year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians and three members of the Arab minority.