Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel carriers raided the flashpoint cities of Jenin and Tulkarm and other areas in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, killing at least 10 Palestinians, Reuters reported.

The assault, one of the largest seen in the West Bank for months, followed a series of smaller raids in the area over recent weeks as Israeli forces sought to crush groups of fighters from Palestinian militant groups.

With Israeli forces battling Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and facing a serious escalation of tensions with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Wednesday’s operation underscored the multiple security threats Israel has been battling since the start of the Gaza war last year.

The armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah factions said in separate statements their gunmen were detonating bombs against Israeli military vehicles in Jenin, Tulkarm and Far’a, a town in the Jordan Valley.

After the initial assault, the sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard from Jenin’s crowded refugee camp, a heavily built up township adjacent to the main urban district that has been a hotbed of militant activity for years, read the report.

Palestinian health authorities said at least 10 Palestinians had been killed in different areas of the West Bank by Israeli forces during the operation.

A short distance outside Jenin, blood soaked the ground next to a damaged car and an impact crater from a drone strike the Israeli military said had killed three militants.

The Palestinian health ministry said troops had surrounded Jenin’s main hospital, blocking off access with earth mounds – a measure the military said was intended to prevent fighters seeking refuge.

A military spokesperson said Wednesday’s operation followed a sharp rise in militant activity in recent months, with more than 150 attacks from Tulkarm and Jenin involving shooting or explosives over the past year.

He said the military assessed that there was an “immediate threat” to civilians but that the operation was part of a broad strategy aimed at thwarting attacks.

“This terror threat in this area is not new, it hasn’t started yesterday and it’s not going to end tomorrow,” Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a media briefing.

Earlier, the military released the names of five Palestinians identified as militants who were killed in Tulkarm on Monday. Two were claimed by Hamas and three by Islamic Jihad, Reuters reported.

As well as the major raids in Jenin and Tulkarm, two of the most volatile cities in the northern West Bank, the military said forces also raided Far’a near Tubas in the Jordan Valley, killing at least four people in a drone strike.

Masoud Naaja, the father of two young men killed in the attack, said he was giving water to some men who asked for a drink when he was wounded.

“In seconds, very fast, we felt like something came down on us from the sky and there was an explosion,” he said. “When I put my hand on my chest, it was full of shrapnel and blood.”

Clashes in the West Bank have escalated since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israel, which says Iran provides weapons and support to the militant factions, has stepped up operations, while Jewish settlers have also launched frequent vigilante-style attacks on Palestinian communities.

Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in raids and more than 660 – fighters and civilians – have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the war in Gaza began nearly 11 months ago, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 30 Israelis have been killed in attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the period, according to Israeli tallies, read the report.

The latest round of Israeli-Palestinian violence began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants stormed from Gaza into southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s Gaza campaign has since demolished swathes of the enclave, displaced nearly all its 2.3 million people multiple times, given rise to deadly hunger and disease and killed more than 40,500 people, Palestinian health officials say.

Internationally mediated talks to end the conflict continue, with Hamas and Israel trading blame for a lack of progress, and the U.S. expressing optimism that a ceasefire can be reached.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the war with Russia would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to U.S. President Joe Biden and his two potential successors, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian leader, addressing a news conference, said Kyiv’s three-week-old incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was part of that plan, but that it also comprised other steps on the economic and diplomatic fronts.

“The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much – (that it would be) fair for Ukraine,” he told reporters in Kyiv of the war launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

He did not elaborate further on the next steps, but said he would also discuss the plan with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and probably also with Republican Donald Trump, the two nominees for the U.S. presidential election.

Zelenskiy said he hoped to go to the United States in September to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York and that he was preparing to meet Biden.

His remarks indicated that he sees the main potential forum for talks as a follow-up international summit on peace, at which Ukraine has said it wants Russia to have representatives, read the report.

The first summit to advance Kyiv’s vision of peace, held in Switzerland in June, pointedly excluded Russia, while attracting scores of delegations, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy, despite Kyiv’s push to win over the global south.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Aug. 19 that talks were out of the question after Ukraine launched a major cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug. 6.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in Kyiv last week, spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and told him he supported an early and peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, Reuters reported.

Zelenskiy has been adamant that Russia wants to dictate terms to Ukraine in any settlement of the war, something that Kyiv sees as unacceptable.

Putin has said any deal needs to start with Ukraine’s acceptance of “realities on the ground”, that would leave Russia with possession of substantial chunks of four Ukrainian regions as well as Crimea. Now Ukraine says it controls more than 1,200 square km (463 sq miles) of Russia’s Kursk region.

“There can be no compromises with Putin, dialogue today is in principle empty and meaningless because he does not want to end the war diplomatically,” Zelenskiy said at the news conference.

He said the offensive into the Kursk region had reduced the number of governments around the world calling for Ukraine to make compromises with Russia to end the war and give up swathes of territory.

On the battlefield, Zelenskiy mocked Putin, who he said was prioritising the capture of Ukrainian land over the defence of Russia’s own territory.

He pointed to Kursk region where Ukraine has claimed the capture of 100 settlements, while Russian forces continue to inch forward in the eastern Donetsk region.

The Ukrainian leader also said that Kyiv was continuing to make progress on its domestic weapons production and that it had conducted its first test of a domestically-produced ballistic missile.

Surging waters have burst through a dam, wiped out at least 20 villages and left at least 30 people dead but probably many more in eastern Sudan, the United Nations said on Monday, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war, Reuters reported.

Torrential rains caused floods that overwhelmed the Arbaat Dam on Sunday just 40 km (25 miles) north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

“The area is unrecognisable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed,” Omar Eissa Haroun, head of the water authority for Red Sea state, said in a WhatsApp message to staff.

One first responder said that between 150 and 200 people were missing.

He said he had seen the bodies of gold miners and pieces of their equipment wrecked in the deluge, and likened the disaster to the devastation in the eastern Libyan city of Derna in September last year when storm waters burst dams, swept away buildings and killed thousands.

On the road to Arbaat on Monday a Reuters reporter saw people burying a man and covering his grave with driftwood to try to prevent it from being washed away in mudslides, read the report.

The homes of about 50,000 people were impacted by the flooding, the United Nations said, citing local authorities, adding that the number only accounted for the area west of the dam as the area east was inaccessible.

The dam was the main source of water for Port Sudan, which is home to the country’s main Red Sea port and working airport, and receives most of the country’s much-needed aid deliveries.

“The city is threatened with thirst in the coming days,” the Sudanese Environmentalists Association said in a statement.

Officials said the dam had started crumbling and silt had been building during days of heavy rain that had come much earlier than usual.

Sudan’s dams, roads and bridges were already in disrepair before the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Forces began in April 2023.

Both sides have since funnelled the bulk of their resources into the conflict, leaving infrastructure badly neglected.

Some people had fled their flooded homes and headed to the mountains where they were now stranded, the health ministry said.

On Monday, the government’s rainy season taskforce said 132 people had been killed in floods across the country, up from 68 two weeks ago. At least 118,000 people have been displaced by the rains this year, according to United Nations agencies, Reuters reported.

The conflict in Sudan began when competition between the army and the RSF, who had previously shared power after staging a coup, flared into open warfare.

The two sides had been seeking to protect their power and extensive economic interests as the international community promoted a plan for a transition towards civilian rule.

Overlapping efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire, including Saudi- and U.S.-led talks in Jeddah, have not eased the fighting and half of the 50 million population lack sufficient food.