The Israeli Army continued during the night from Monday to Tuesday with its major operation against the Jenin refugee camp which, after more than 24 hours and with a balance of 10 dead and a hundred wounded, is already the largest it has ever launched. in the territories occupied since the Second Intifada (2000-2005).
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported on Tuesday that the death toll has risen to ten, after the Palestinian Red Crescent found a body on the outskirts of the refugee camp, which hundreds of Israeli soldiers broke into yesterday. In addition, a hundred people are injured, twenty of them seriously.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the clashes continue today, as Israeli helicopters and planes have again bombarded and fly over the area, where extensive destruction could be seen after sunrise.
During the night, hundreds of people have left their homes in the Jenin camp and, in images from the WAFA agency, you can see how entire families, with small children and the elderly, leave with their arms raised in surrender.
A local Jenin leader, quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, estimated that 3,000 residents left the camp and about a thousand were taken to government buildings of the Palestinian National Authority. It is not clear if they have been forced to leave their homes or if they have decided to do so out of fear that the fighting will continue, as well as the lack of electricity, water and food.
Heavy fighting yesterday and the destruction of infrastructure by Israeli Army bulldozers have left camp residents without electricity and water supply, and few provisions.
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Palestine, Lynn Hasting, has asked via Twitter that the supply of water and electricity be restored, and assistance be provided to those in need: “The majority of residents without electricity or drinking water must be restored. The immediate focus (must be) on treating the wounded and on emergency humanitarian assistance.”
The biggest operation in 20 years
An Israeli military spokesman said in a statement that, in recent hours, the troops “continued their anti-terrorist activities” in Jenin, where Israel claims that Palestinian militants from the radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad are hiding.
The uniformed officers have found an underground well that “was used to store explosive devices” and “two rooms belonging to terrorist organizations” used to monitor “the operational situation” in the area, according to the spokesman quoted by the EFE Agency. In the statement, he added that they “neutralized a grenade launcher” and “confiscated weapons and military equipment,” but he did not offer the number of militiamen killed or detained in the operation dubbed “Casa y Jardín.”
The chief of the Army General Staff, Herzi Halevi, visited the troops in Jenin at dawn, who “are eliminating the source of terrorism before it leads to more attacks”, as stated by the Armed Forces in a tweet.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, stated last night that this operation could last “one or two more days”, estimating that there are some 300 armed men in the camp, and revealed that the decision to launch this operation was taken “a few days ago.” Several months”.
The incursion is the largest in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada (2000-2005), during which Jenin was the scene of heavy fighting for several days in 2002, which left dozens dead between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.
Some 20,000 people relocated to the outskirts of the city of the same name live in the Jenin camp, after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Israel has assured that it has become a “horn’s nest” and a “safe haven” for the militiamen who operate in other areas of the West Bank and who are grouped in this town under the name of the Jenin Brigade.
Amid increased tension in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, new Palestinian armed groups have emerged and their attacks have left 25 dead on the Israeli side, most of them settlers and five of them minors. At the same time, 153 Palestinians have died, most of them militants in armed clashes with Israeli troops, but also civilians, including 26 minors.
