“The operation has officially ended and the soldiers have left the Jenin area,” a military spokeswoman in the northern West Bank told AFP, indicating that her troops had begun withdrawing on Tuesday evening.
This operation, the most important in years in this area occupied by Israel since 1967, began Monday with the deployment of hundreds of army soldiers, drones and bulldozers.
Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in the attack on the Jenin refugee camp.
This city and its refugee camp, a stronghold of armed Palestinian groups, are frequent targets of Israeli operations.
The northern West Bank has recently been the scene of a spate of attacks on Israelis and violence against Palestinians by settlers.
The raid sparked an exchange of blows in Gaza, from where five rockets were fired at Israel and intercepted by the armed forces, the army said on Wednesday.
In response to this action, “fighter jets attacked an underground weapons factory owned by the terrorist organization Hamas and a production facility for raw materials for missiles,” the Israeli army said.
For its part, a Palestinian security source said the attack hit a military center of Gaza’s ruling Palestinian movement, Hamas, with no casualties.
The day before, a multiple clash in Tel Aviv left seven injured, an attack Hamas hailed as “the first response to the crimes committed against our people in Jenin province.”
At the scene, police chief Yaakov Shabtai said the “terrorist” was a West Bank resident who was shot dead by a passerby.
“Eliminate Terrorism”
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said Tuesday night the Israeli operation was an “aggression in violation of international law.”
The army announced that during the operation in the Jenin camp they had found hiding places of the militants, weapons depots and an underground bunker for storing explosives.
It was also noted that six explosives production sites were dismantled and a large quantity of weapons confiscated.
“We will act as long as it takes to eradicate terrorism,” right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday while visiting a military base near Jenin.
“We will not allow Jenin to become a haven for terrorism,” added the leader at the head of a coalition of ultra-Orthodox and far-right.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 12 Palestinians were killed and 100 injured in the operation, 20 of whom are in serious condition.
The fighting also led to “some 3,000” residents of the camp, which is home to about 18,000 Palestinians, being exiled as of Monday night, said Jenin Deputy Governor Kamal Abu al-Roub.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for an end to the increasing violence in Israel and the West Bank in recent months.
The violence linked to the conflict has killed at least 190 Palestinians, 26 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP census of official sources.