Thousands flee Jenin refugee camp after teens die in Israel strike
Israel has launched its biggest military offensive on the West Bank in years, ITV News correspondent Rachel Younger reports
Civilians are fleeing a refugee camp at the heart of a deadly Israeli military raid on the occupied West Bank.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed after Israel's drone strikes on Monday, in what is becoming the deadliest year on the West Bank in almost two decades.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the dead included five teenagers, CNN reports.
Children are among the 40 people injured, a Palestinian journalist inside Jenin hospital told ITV News.
Journalist Ali Smoudi told our correspondent there are more people injured.
Ambulances are being barred from moving and Palestinians trying to get to the hospital to donate blood are not being allowed to travel, he reported.
The large-scale raid, which began Monday, represents one of the most intense military operations in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said as many as four thousand people have fled Jenin as Israeli troops continue their raids
It comes at a time of growing domestic pressure for a tough response to a series of attacks on Israeli settlers – including a shooting attack last week that killed four people.
Israel's troops remained inside the Jenin refugee camp hunting for militants and weapons on Tuesday.
Jenin Mayor Nidal Al-Obeidi said around 4,000 Palestinians had fled the camp, finding accommodation in the homes of relatives and in shelters.
Residents said there was no water or electricity in the camp.
Across the West Bank, Palestinians observed a general strike to protest the Israeli raid.
Palestinian Red Crescent Society director in Jenin, Mahmoud Al-Saadi said: “The humanitarian situation is very difficult and is getting worse.
"All the roads are closed, no ambulances, vehicles or people are allowed to pass into the camp or inside its alleyways.
"The streets and infrastructure are completely destroyed, the water and electricity are cut all across the camp.”
Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, said Monday's operation began just after 1 am with an airstrike on a building used by militants for planning attacks.
He said the goal of the operation was to destroy and confiscate weapons.
“We’re not planning to hold ground,” he said. “We’re acting against specific targets.”
He said a brigade-size force – roughly 2,000 soldiers – was taking part in the operation, and that military drones had carried out a series of strikes to clear the way for the ground forces.
Although Israel has carried out isolated airstrikes in the West Bank in recent weeks, Lt. Col. Hecht said Monday’s series of strikes marked an escalation unseen since 2006 - the end of the Palestinian uprising.
While Israel described the attack as a pinpoint operation, videos on Palestinian social media showed a large tuft of white smoke billowing from a crowded area, with a mosque minaret nearby.
Lynn Hastings, the United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian areas, said on Twitter that she was “alarmed by scale of Israeli forces operation,” noting the airstrikes in a densely populated refugee camp.
She said the UN was mobilising humanitarian aid.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, the military blocked roads within the camp, took over houses and buildings and set up snipers on rooftops. The agency also said the military cut off electricity in large areas of the camp and army bulldozers caused damage to property.
The Jenin camp and an adjacent town of the same name have been a flashpoint as Israeli-Palestinian violence escalated since the spring of 2022.
Monday’s raid came two weeks after another violent confrontation in Jenin.
"There has been a dynamic here around Jenin for the last year,” Lt. Col. Hecht said, defending Monday’s tactics. “It’s been intensifying all the time.”
But there also may have been political considerations at play. Leading members of Israel’s far-right government, which is dominated by West Bank settlers and their supporters, have been calling for a broader military response to the ongoing violence in the area.
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“Proud of our heroes on all fronts and this morning especially of our soldiers operating in Jenin,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist who recently called for Israel to kill “thousands” of militants if necessary, tweeted. “Praying for their success.”
Monday’s deaths bring the death toll of Palestinians killed this year in the West Bank to 133, part of more than a year-long spike in violence that has seen some of the worst bloodshed in that area in nearly two decades.
The outburst of violence escalated last year after a spate of Palestinian attacks prompted Israel to step up its raids in the West Bank.
Israel says the raids are meant to beat back militants. The Palestinians say such violence is inevitable in the absence of any political process with Israel and increased West Bank settlement construction and violence by extremist settlers.
They see the intensifying Israeli military presence in the area as an entrenchment of Israel’s 56-year open-ended occupation of the territory.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and also people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Palestinian attacks since the start of this year have killed 24 people.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.