Jenin, West Bank - Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 10 Palestinians in raids and strikes on the West Bank, the Red Crescent said, in the latest escalation of brutality in the illegally occupied territory.

Two Palestinians were killed in the city of Jenin, four others in a nearby village, and four more in a refugee camp near the town of Tubas, Red Crescent spokesman Ahmed Jibril told AFP.

He added that 15 others had been wounded.

The Israeli army said early Wednesday it was carrying out "a counterterrorism operation" in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.

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Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X that the army was "operating in full force since last night" in refugee camps in the two cities "to dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructures established there."

He said Iran was "working to establish an eastern front against Israel" in the West Bank, "following the Gaza and Lebanon model, by funding and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons from Jordan."

Katz then virtually declared war on the West Bank, where it is an illegal occupying power, adding: "We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures. This is a war, and we must win it."

Israeli violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza, with more than 650 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and racist settler pogroms since Hamas's October 7 attack, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

The latest operation comes two days after Israel said it carried out an air strike on the West Bank that the Palestinian Authority reported killed five people.

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The Israeli army confirmed the five deaths on Wednesday and said, without offering any evidence, the strike hit a structure "used by the terrorists to conduct terrorist activity and harm (Israeli) soldiers operating in the area."

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the north of the West Bank, issued a statement early Wednesday denouncing an "open war" by Israel.

"With this aggression which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank," the statement said.

Hamas, whose popularity has soared in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, late Tuesday reiterated its call for Palestinians there to "rise up".

Its statement came in response to comments by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right extremist previously convicted for supporting Israeli terrorism, who this week said he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

A settler himself, Ben Gvir and multiple members of the Israeli government have openly called for the annexation of the West Bank, the occupation of which violates law against apartheid, according to an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice.