Late Tuesday night, the army began to withdraw from Jenin, where some 50,000 people live – a third of them in a refugee camp that the army, like the whole city of Jenin, considers a safe haven for ” Palestinian terrorists. According to Palestinian reports, when the first soldiers left the city, there was intense gunfire between the army and armed residents and several explosions. According to the military, a soldier was killed in combat.
Israel’s army moved into Jenin on Monday after flanking air strikes with about 1,000 troops. It was the biggest military operation in the occupied West Bank in two decades. At least twelve Palestinians were killed and over a hundred wounded. According to the Israeli army, the objective of Operation “House and Garden” was to destroy the “terrorist infrastructure” in the stronghold of Islamist militants.
Portal/Ammar Awad The attacks also hit many civilian targets
The attacks also hit civilian infrastructure, destroying much of it, with army bulldozers damaging roads. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that at least two hospitals were attacked. The UN and aid organizations have previously criticized the fact that helpers’ access to the Jenin refugee camp was blocked.
Rocket alert also in Israel
There was a missile alert in Israel on Wednesday night. Five missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip in the area bordering Israel, the military said, all intercepted. Several explosions were heard in the area, believed to have been triggered by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israel: Soldiers withdraw from Jenin
A rocket warning was fired on the border with the Gaza Strip during the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian city of Jenin in the West Bank, which was accompanied by fighting. Seven people were injured in an attack in the city of Tel Aviv on Wednesday. An Israeli soldier and at least a dozen Palestinians were also killed in an operation.
Shortly thereafter, Israeli fighter jets launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, during which, according to the army, an underground weapons production facility and a Hamas rocket factory were hit. The Palestinian extremist organization has ruled the Gaza Strip since it took power by force in 2007 and denies the State of Israel the right to exist. More than two million people live in very precarious conditions in the isolated coastal area.
APA/AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh The military operation has been running since Monday
Netanyahu: “Not a one-time event”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated on Tuesday afternoon that the Jenin mission would end soon. However, the action “is not a one-off process, we will continue as long as necessary”. Defense Minister Joav Galant said Jenin had become a hotbed of terrorism over the past two years – that’s over now. In addition to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other loose extremist groups have also gained influence in the region.
Experts doubt that the latest military operation in the West Bank can contribute to a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – quite the opposite. The operation could help deter attacks and eliminate individual fighters, said Tamir Hajman, head of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “But only political action will guarantee long-term stability.”
deep ditches
The Netanyahu government’s settlement policy, which the United Nations has criticized as violating international law and where Jewish nationalists and right-wing extremists now sit at the cabinet table, recently deepened the rift even further. Since the beginning of the year, two dozen people have died in attacks by Palestinians. During the same period, more than 150 Palestinians were shot dead during violent clashes, Israeli military operations or after their own attacks.
A Palestinian attacker wounded at least seven people in an attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. He collided with a group of pedestrians at a bus stop and stabbed them. After the attack, Hamas spoke of an “initial reaction” to what was happening in Jenin. According to Hamas, the attacker was a member of the Palestinian organization.