Israeli Operations in Jenin Continue for Second Day, Death Toll Rises to 10

The death toll of Palestinians in Jenin, in the West Bank, rose to 10 as Israel continued its biggest military operation in years in the occupied territories for a second day on Tuesday.

The military raid forced thousands to flee their homes as the government said it bombed the Jenin refugee camp with “great force”.

The raid, conducted under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, targeted the northern city of Jenin and used armored vehicles, military bulldozers and drone strikes.

On Tuesday morning, shops closed in Jenin, with very few people littering the streets with debris and burning roadblocks from the previous day’s fighting.

An AFP correspondent said that drones were flying over our heads.

In the city’s refugee camp – an urban community of 18,000 people – several streets were destroyed, causing electricity and oil cables to smash and apparently puddles of water after an Israeli bomb-proof bulldozer ran past.

The Israeli military said its raids on Jenin continued on Tuesday night, as troops worked to “neutralize” an underground hole allegedly used to store explosives in the refugee camp.

Prior to this operation, Israel had already stepped up its raids in the northern West Bank, which has seen a string of recent attacks on Israelis as well as Jewish settler violence targeting Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has worsened since last year and has escalated further under Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes far-right allies.

“In the past five years, this was the worst raid,” said Kassem Benkader, a nurse in the hospital’s morgue, noting that many patients sustained gunshot wounds and explosive injuries.

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Army spokesman Daniel Hajjari told reporters that the Israeli forces “did not intend to stay in the camp”, but that we were “preparing for the more serious situation” of prolonged fighting.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 10 people were killed and 100 wounded, 20 seriously.

A wounded Israeli soldier was evacuated by military helicopter.

Since the start of the operation, about 3,000 people have fled their homes in the Jenin camp, Kamal Abu al-Rub, deputy governor of Jenin, told AFP, adding that arrangements are underway to house them in schools and other shelters in the city of Jenin.

In the darkness of a Monday night, the women carried their young children while the elders moved their belongings through the streets.

“I saw them moving bulldozers into the camp, they were destroying buildings… These are people’s homes,” Bader Shughul, a resident of Jenin, told AFP.

The army said that soldiers and gunmen exchanged fire in a mosque in the camp, and weapons and explosives were later found in the building.

Mahmoud Hawashin, a camp resident, predicted that “if there is more Palestinian bloodshed, there will be more Israeli bloodshed.”

The United Nations says that the Jenin camp has “the highest rates of unemployment and poverty” among the West Bank camps, and that the military operation has disrupted water and electricity for “large areas” of it.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told reporters that the attack was hitting Jenin “with great force”.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry described the escalation as “an open war against the people of Jenin.”

The Jenin area is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.

The ruling Fatah party declared a general strike affecting private business and other sectors, and saw all PA employees stay at home.

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” about the violence and called for respect for international humanitarian law.

Neighboring countries raised similar concerns and called on the UAE to “immediately stop the repeated and escalating campaigns against the Palestinian people.”

Türkiye. Meanwhile, she said she was deeply concerned about the new wave of violence in the region and urged the Israeli authorities to act wisely and stop such actions.

But the United States defended its ally Israel, saying it had the right to defend its people.

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The League of Arab States is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss “Arab mobilization to confront the Israeli attack on Jenin.”

On Monday, the army said it had bombed an alleged “joint operations center” of a group called the Jenin Brigade, a weapons depot, a “surveillance and reconnaissance” site and a hideout.

And in the besieged Gaza Strip, demonstrators burned tires near the border fence with Israel.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six Day War in 1967.

Excluding annexed East Jerusalem, the area is now home to some 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.

The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want Israel to withdraw from all lands it captured in 1967 and dismantle all Jewish settlements.

But Netanyahu has vowed to “strengthen the settlements” and has shown no interest in reviving moribund peace talks since 2014.

At least 187 Palestinians and 25 Israelis, Ukrainians and Italians have been killed this year, according to an AFP tally compiled by official sources on both sides.

The figures compare to at least 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories in all of 2022, the deadliest for Palestinians in seven years.