Eight Palestinians were killed on Sunday July 2 and Monday July 3 in a “massive counter-terrorism operation” by the Israeli army in the city and region of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israeli forces are targeting “terrorist infrastructure” and a “joint operations center” that serves as the command center for the “Jenin Brigade,” a local militant group, according to a statement.
In addition to the eight dead, fifty people were injured – ten of them seriously – during this operation by the Israeli army, announced the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Separately, “a man was killed by [Israeli] occupation bullets at the northern entrance to Al-Bireh, near Ramallah”, he added. According to the IDF, a “soldier was lightly injured by army grenade shrapnel during the Jenin operation” and was transferred to hospital.
In a new statement, the armed forces say exchanges of fire continued on Monday in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Israeli forces there targeted “a site of production of weapons and storage of explosive devices,” the army said. “The city of Jenin and the Jenin camp are currently a combat zone,” she added.
“Hub of terrorism”, according to Israel
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he takes a “proactive approach” to terrorism. Israel struck “with great force” at Jenin, a “hub of terrorism”, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also claimed. Israeli “terrorist attacks against civilians” were plotted in the Jenin camp, he told reporters.
“People knew we were probably going to get in, but the airstrike method, our target being right in the heart of the camp, took them by surprise,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, spokesman for the camp, told reporters. the Israeli army. “We are acting against specific suspects,” he added, assuring that the army, which uses drones, is doing its best to spare the civilian population.
“There are aerial bombardments and a ground invasion,” the director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jenin, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Several houses and sites were bombed (…). Smoke rises everywhere. »
At least 185 Palestinians and 25 Israelis killed
Ishmael Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, called the Israeli incursion “brutal”. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement said in a statement that “all options are on the table to strike at the enemy [Israel] in response to its aggression in Jenin.” Jordan denounced “the recent aggression targeting the city of Jenin”, issuing an “urgent appeal to the international community to (…) put an end to the Israeli attacks in the occupied Palestinian territories”, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The city of Jenin, located in the northern West Bank, and the adjacent refugee camp are regularly the scene of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians. The Israeli army regularly carries out raids in the region, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, which is theoretically under the control of the Palestinian Authority, chaired by Mahmoud Abbas.
In June, seven people were killed, including two 15-year-olds, in an Israeli army raid on a refugee camp in Jenin. During the raid, the army also fired missiles from a helicopter, which had not happened in the West Bank since 2002, during the second Palestinian intifada, according to a Palestinian official. The violence has increased in recent months, and since the beginning of the year at least 181 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed, according to an AFP count compiled from official sources.