By Ali Sawafta, James Mackenzie BARDALA, West Bank (Reuters) -Just metres from the last houses in Bardala, a Palestinian village at the northern end of the occupied West Bank, Israel's army has been bulldozing a dirt road and ditch between the community and open grazing land on the hills behind it.

The raid took place as Israel’s military said it had expanded its operation to crack down on militants in the city of Jenin.

Over 9,500 Palestinian detainees held by Israel in its prisons, according to Palestinian figures - Anadolu Ajansı

Israeli forces killed a Hamas commander in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday as they pushed ahead with a weeks-long operation against militant groups in the area that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes.

The U.N. estimates some 37,000 Palestinians have been driven out by a month-old offensive against militant groups in the occupied West Bank.

A group of Christian Zionist leaders wrote a petition to Trump in recent days asking him to “reject all efforts… to pressure the Jewish people to relinquish their ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria,” the Biblical name for the West Bank that Republicans in Washington are increasingly using.