JERUSALEM — Israel announced 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, Israeli 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 the suburbs of Tel Aviv, Israel. At least one other explosive device was discovered and dismantled. 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.

— The New York Times