Israel says it is targeting the refugee camp because it is home to the Palestinians responsible for a series of attacks on Israeli citizens in recent months. Early Tuesday, Israeli forces said they had been able to find and seize weapons and explosives, as well as destroy tunnels and command posts.
“In recent months, Jenin has become a safe haven for terrorism. We are putting an end to this,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, adding that the operation was being carried out with “minimal damage to civilians.”
Some Palestinians say this violence is the result of more than 50 years of occupation by Israeli forces. They observed a general strike in the West Bank in protest.
international alarm
The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank condemned the raid, saying Monday night it would freeze the few remaining points of cooperation with Israel, as well as minimize contact with Israel’s main benefactor, the United States.
A State Department spokesman said he supported Israel’s “right to defend its people” against “terrorist groups.” Meanwhile, they warned that it was “imperative to take all possible precautions to avoid the loss of civilian life” and urged “the Israeli and Palestinian security forces to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank.”
International organizations have also expressed concern.
The UN envoy for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, warned that the escalation in the West Bank was “very dangerous”.
Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian areas, tweeted that she was “alarmed” by the “scale of the Israeli forces’ operation” and pointed to airstrikes on a densely populated refugee camp. She said that the UN was mobilizing humanitarian aid.
Some commentators inside Israel have also suggested the move may be an attempt to pander to members of the country’s far-right government, which is dominated by West Bank settlers, and their supporters.
“Proud of our heroes on all fronts and this morning especially of our soldiers operating in Jenin,” tweeted National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist who recently called on Israel to kill thousands of militants if necessary. . “Praying for your success.”
Israeli forces carry out routine incursions into the occupied West Bank despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority has full control over administrative and security affairs in the area.
More than 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, according to the Associated Press, part of more than a year of increase in violence which has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the area in nearly two decades. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed at least 26 people.
Israel says most of those killed in recent raids have been militants, but others, including youth protesting the raids and others not involved in the clashes, have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories Palestinians seek for their long-awaited independent state, in the 1967 Middle East war.
Lawahez Jabari reported from Jenin, in the West Bank, and Alexander Smith reported from London.
The Associated Press contributed.
