A car-ramming attack injured 7 on Tuesday (July 4th) in Tel Aviv, as the Israeli army continued a large-scale operation in which 10 Palestinians were killed in the northern occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, hailed a “heroic” attack, calling it “a first response to the crimes against [its] people in the Jenin camp”, where Israel has been carrying out its campaign since Monday. largest military operation in the West Bank for several years.
According to preliminary reports, a car attacked civilians in north Tel Aviv on Tuesday, injuring 7, Israeli police said, adding that they had “neutralized the assailant”. 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. “It appears that the suspect was driving a vehicle going south to north, drove into pedestrians who were on a shopping street and got out of his vehicle to stab civilians with a sharp object,” according to the police.
In Jenin, overflown by drones, shops remained closed on Tuesday, reported an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent, on the second day of an operation mobilizing hundreds of Israeli soldiers in this city and the camp of adjacent refugees. The almost deserted streets are strewn with debris and stones, the bitumen is gutted and the roadway is blackened around improvised barricades.
Ten Palestinians killed in the West Bank
The army announced that it had struck “a joint operations center” of a local armed group, the Jenin Brigade, an arms depot, an “observation and reconnaissance” site and a cache used by perpetrators alleged attacks on Israeli targets. “One hundred and twenty Palestinian suspects” have been apprehended since Monday while “about 300 armed terrorists are still in Jenin, most of them in hiding”, the army said.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, 10 Palestinians have been killed and 100 injured, 20 of whom are in serious condition. 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.
“Our forces have entered the nest of terrorists in Jenin (…), they are destroying command centers and seizing a considerable amount of weapons,” Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin said Monday. Netanyahu. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has denounced “an open war against the population in Jenin”.
“The worst raid in five years”
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 “by bullets,” said Qasem Benighader, a 35-year-old nurse at Jenin hospital: “This is the worst raid in five years. »
According to a doctor at Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, injured people 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 circulate.
In June, 7 people were killed in an Israeli raid on the Jenin camp. Shortly after, four Israelis were shot dead by two Palestinians near the Jewish settlement of Eli in the northern West Bank. “All options are on the table to strike the enemy,” warned Palestinian Islamic Jihad. 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. Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 187 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, 1 Ukrainian and 1 Italian since the start of the year, according to an AFP count compiled from official sources.