As the Israeli army began to withdraw from Jenin in the West Bank, its troops came under rocket fire from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. “In response”, the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on Gaza as it came to the end of a major two-day operation in the area. This operation is “officially over”, the Israeli army announced on Wednesday.
“The operation is officially over and the soldiers have left the Jenin area,” an army spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse. Twelve Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed during the assault on the Jenin refugee camp, launched early Monday by Israel. Israel carried out its largest military operation in the West Bank since Monday in several years.
It mobilized hundreds of soldiers, as well as army drones and bulldozers which devastated streets. Israeli troops began withdrawing from Jenin on Tuesday evening, an army spokeswoman told AFP.
“Israeli troops have begun the withdrawal from Jenin,” the spokeswoman said, without giving further details. Israeli televisions showed images of military vehicles leaving the area and entering Israeli territory.
Five rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip and were intercepted, the Israeli army said on Wednesday. No Palestinian claims were immediately reported.
Shots to which Israel “responded” by hitting Gaza, a Palestinian security source indicating that a military site of the Islamist movement Hamas in the north of the strip had been hit, without causing injuries.
On Tuesday, a car bombing in Tel Aviv injured seven people, an attack hailed by Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, speaking of “a first response to the crimes against our people in Jenin camp”.
At the scene of the attack, police chief Yaakov Shabtai said the “terrorist” was a West Bank resident who was shot dead by a passerby.
In Jenin, overflown by drones, shops remained closed on Tuesday, an AFP correspondent reported, on the second day of an operation that mobilized hundreds of Israeli soldiers in this city and the adjacent refugee camp.
The almost deserted streets are strewn with debris and stones, the bitumen is gutted and the roadway is blackened around improvised barricades. “The refugee camp is facing a dire situation,” Jenin Mayor Nidal Abu Saleh told AFP, referring to power and water cuts there.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila called the Israeli operation “an aggression that defies international law” at a press conference on Tuesday evening.
The army said it had struck “a joint operations center” of a local armed group, the Jenin Brigade, and several targets including six “explosive workshops”.
“We will act as long as necessary to eradicate terrorism,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said during a Tuesday visit to a military base near Jenin.
“We will not allow Jenin to become a haven for terrorism again,” he added. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, twelve Palestinians were killed and one hundred injured, twenty of whom are in serious condition, during this operation.
The city of Jenin and the refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, have been repeatedly targeted by Israeli operations. The northern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has seen a recent wave of attacks on Israelis as well as anti-Palestinian violence by Jewish settlers.
The fighting prompted the exodus on Monday evening of “about 3,000” residents of the camp, where some 18,000 Palestinians live, according to Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub.
“We received a lot of injuries,” including “shot wounds,” said Qassem Benighader, a 35-year-old nurse at Jenin hospital: “This is the worst raid in five years. »
According to a doctor at the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin, the wounded died because they were not treated in time.
“Some died, others saw their condition worsen,” Dr. Tawfeek al-Shobaki testified Tuesday, adding that the destruction committed by Israeli forces around the camp made it more difficult for vehicles to move around.
“All options are on the table to strike the enemy,” the Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned. Hamas leader Ishmael Haniyeh denounced a “brutal” Israeli operation.
The Arab League announced an emergency meeting on Tuesday while Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, Arab countries with diplomatic ties with Israel, denounced the operation.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, on Tuesday denounced the violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank which “must stop”.
Israel has “the right to defend itself” but must respect the “proportionality of international law”, the German Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called on the Israeli military “to show restraint in its operation and all parties to avoid an escalation”.
Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 190 Palestinians, 26 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP count established from official sources.
