Benjamin Netanyahu tells army to step up raids after bus blasts

Benjamin Netanyahu said that IDF forces “will launch additional operational activity against terror centres” after five bombs were placed on buses in different locations in Tel Aviv.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has visited the Tulkarem refugee camp in the northern West Bank, ordering the army to intensify a month-old offensive there after three bombs exploded on Israeli buses, his office said.

“Netanyahu visited a short while ago Tulkarem refugee camp” and ordered more “operational activity” in the area, his office said, after the rare visit to a camp in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Days after a ceasefire took effect in Gaza, Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the north of the West Bank that it dubbed “Iron Wall”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells army to step up raids after bus blasts. Picture: AFP

Spanning multiple refugee camps near the cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas, the operation has killed at least 40 Palestinians and displaced at least 40,000, according to the UN.

Netanyahu said the army was doing “very important work against Hamas and other terrorist organisations’ desire to harm us”.

He said that Israel had intensified its raids over the past year, fighting in camps it deems to contain Palestinian militant factions.

“We are entering terrorist strongholds, flattening entire streets that terrorists use, and their homes. We are eliminating terrorists, commanders.” His visit to Tulkarem comes after three buses exploded in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam late on Thursday without causing any injuries.

Security forces and bomb disposal units are deployed to the scene of a bus explosion in Bat Yam. Picture: AFP

A police commander from central Israel, Haim Sargarof, said in a televised briefing that the devices used to set off the blasts were similar to those found in the West Bank.

Violence in the West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 898 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

At least 32 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

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TEL AVIV ROCKED BY BUS BOMBS

Three bombs exploded while two were defused at separate locations involving buses in central Israel.

Channel 12 reported that one of the undetonated devices was found by a passenger who notified the driver about a suspicious bag.

According to local media the bombs were intended to detonate tomorrow when the buses were in service.

“These are identical explosive devices with a timer,” a police spokesman told AFP

The explosions rocked several buses in the central city of Bat Yam on Thursday evening in what Israeli police described as a “suspected terror attack”, with an official saying that there were no injuries.

An Israeli police officer inspects the scene of one of a series of bus explosionsin in Bat Yam, central Israel. Picture: AP

“Preliminary report – Suspected terror attack. Multiple reports have been received of explosions involving several buses at different locations in Bat Yam,” the police said in a statement.

Large police forces had been deployed to search for suspects, the statement said.

“Police bomb disposal units are scanning for additional suspicious objects. We urge the public to avoid the areas and remain alert for any suspicious items,” it added.

3 buses exploded in the center of the country in the last hour.

We are lucky that the buses were empty.

We could have seen one of the biggest attacks we have ever seen today.

The event is not over yet. Pray for Israel. pic.twitter.com/YNQgVcs9PM

— Eli Afriat 🇮🇱🎗 (@EliAfriatISR) February 20, 2025

Tzvika Brot, the mayor of Bat Yam, said in a video statement that the explosions took place on two buses in two different parking lots.

“There are no injured in these incidents,” Brot said.

Israeli police inspect the scene of one of a series of bus explosions in Bat Yam, central Israel. Picture: Israel Fire and Rescue Authority

Television footage aired by some Israeli networks showed a completely burnt-out bus, while another was on fire.

Israeli media said that bus drivers countrywide had been asked to stop and inspect their own buses for additional possible explosive devices.

Israeli police inspect the scene of one of a series of bus explosions in what authorities said appeared to be a militant attack in Bat Yam, central Israel. Picture: AP

Security has also been bolstered for Jerusalem’s light rail, Channel 12 news said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a security meeting following the blasts, his office said in a statement

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been receiving ongoing updates from his military secretary on the IED incidents in the Dan (central) area and will soon hold a security assessment,” the statement said.

An Israeli police officer inspect the scene where police have reported a series of explosions on buses in Bat Yam, central Israel. Picture: AP

A Telegram channel claiming to represent Hamas’s so-called Tulkarem Battalion, based in the West Bank’s Tulkarem, put out a statement that may signal the group’s responsibility, The Times of Israel reports.

The statement reads: “The revenge of the martyrs will not be forgotten so long as the occupier is present on our land… This is a jihad of either victory or martyrdom.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz says he has instructed the IDF to ramp up its operations in the West Bank.

“In light of the severe terror attack attempts [in the Tel Aviv area] by Palestinian terror organizations (sic) against the civilian population in Israel, I instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of the counterterrorism activity in the Tulkarem refugee camp, and all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria,” he said in a statement, using the West Bank’s biblical name.

He added: “We will hunt down the terrorists to the bitter end and destroy the terror infrastructure in the camps used as frontline posts of the Iranian evil axis.

“Residents who give shelter to terror will pay a heavy price”.

ISRAEL ‘HITS ILLEGAL CROSSINGS ON LEBANON BORDER’

Meanwhile, a Syria war monitor said Israel struck illegal crossings on the Syria-Lebanon border early Friday, the latest such attack on the frontier area.

“Israeli bombardment targets the illegal crossings between Syria and Lebanon” in Wadi Khaled on the Lebanese side and in the west of Syria’s Homs province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman reported “heavy material damage to buildings and vehicles”.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “enemy aircraft flying at low altitude over the city of Hermel” and villages in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s northeast near the Syrian border.

In Lebanon, a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has been in place since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war.

Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of violating the truce.

– with Agence France Presse (AFP)

Originally published as Benjamin Netanyahu tells army to step up raids after bus blasts