Expanding West Bank Campaign, Israel Sends Tanks for First Time in Decades

Israel announced on Sunday that it was expanding its weekslong military operation against armed Palestinian groups in the occupied West Bank and had deployed tanks in the territory’s north for the first time in two decades.

Adding to the escalating tensions, the country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that tens of thousands of Palestinian residents who have left the centers of militancy targeted by the Israeli operation and are displaced within the West Bank will not be allowed to return to their homes.

Israel’s actions came after bombs exploded on three buses on Thursday night in different parking depots in Tel Aviv’s suburbs. At least one other explosive device was discovered and dismantled. The police are still investigating, but they said the devices resembled improvised bombs made in the West Bank.

The buses had emptied of passengers before the explosions, which caused no injuries. But the blasts jarred Israelis, recalling the deadly bus bombings of the mid-1990s and early 2000s, and the country was put on a terrorism alert.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately called for “a massive operation” in the West Bank, after weeks of what the Israeli military describes as a campaign to root out militant groups and prevent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Israel has shifted its attention to the centers of militancy in the northern West Bank as its campaign against Hamas in Gaza has wound down.

Speaking at the military’s officers’ training school on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said that troops would remain in the West Bank “as long as needed” and that sending tanks in for the first time in decades meant one thing: “We are fighting terrorism with all means and everywhere.”