Three empty buses exploded on Thursday evening while Israeli police found two more undetonated bombs.
Israel is gearing up for an “intensive” operation in the occupied West Bank after bombs detonated on three empty buses in a central Israel parking depot.
Israeli security services say the bombings on Thursday evening, which caused no casualties, were the work of armed groups, according to Israeli media.
“Following the attempt to perpetrate a chain of mass bus bombings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just completed a security assessment,” the office of the Israeli prime minister said on social media.
“The Prime Minister has ordered the [military] to carry out an intensive operation against centres of terrorism in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]. The Prime Minister also ordered the Israel Police and the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] to increase preventative activity against additional attacks in Israeli cities,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Some parts of the West Bank were immediately sealed off and further restrictions have been imposed on the movement of Palestinians. Citing unnamed security officials, The Jerusalem Post reported that the explosives had been linked to “terrorist infrastructure” in the West Bank.
The Israeli military later announced that it had deployed three extra units to its “Central Command”, which is responsible for Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, in preparation for expanding its weeks-long offensive against Palestinian communities.
“The [Israeli military] continues to conduct an ongoing situation assessment and prepares to expand offensive activity,” the military said.
The bombs destroyed three empty buses parked in depots around Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv, while two additional undetonated bombs were found in the area by police.
The investigation has been passed on to Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency.
According to police, the explosives were likely intended to go off on Friday morning when people were on their way to work, describing the devices as identical to others used in the West Bank, but no further details were provided.
“We need to determine if a single suspect placed explosives on a number of buses, or if there were multiple suspects,” police spokesman Haim Sargrof told Israeli media.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent Nour Odeh said Palestinians in the West Bank are living in further fear following the “announcements of stepped-up Israeli military action” following the explosions.
“The occupied West Bank, especially in the north in Tulkarem and Jenin, have been going through an unprecedented military assault, resulting in the mass forced displacement of more than 40,000,” Odeh said.
Israeli forces have set up hundreds of checkpoints across the occupied West Bank since the start of their offensive on January 21, and at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military during that time.
There has also been widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in local communities by Israeli troops.