At least eight people are dead in the West Bank city of Jenin after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a massive counterterrorism operation in the city.
At least eight Palestinians have been killed, including two children, according to Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), an international NGO. Another two dozen people are reported as injured, and at least 500 families have evacuated the refugee camp.
The US State Department said it supports Israel’s right to defend itself against “terrorist groups,” but urged Jerusalem to “take all possible precautions to prevent the loss of civilian lives.”
UN Spokesperson Farhan Hag told reporters that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned about the developments in Jenin. He affirms that all military operations must be conducted with full respect for international humanitarian law.”
The PNA has protested the IDF operation, calling it “a war crime” and severed its security cooperation with the IDF.
Jenin Mayor Nidal Obeidi says the Israeli attack is a “real massacre and an attempt to wipe out all aspects of life inside the city and the camp.”
“Those being targeted now are not just the resistance fighters, but civilians are being killed and civilians wounded as well,” he told Arab media.
“What is happening now is the complete destruction of the camp’s infrastructure. What’s being targeted includes the water networks’ main lines, the sewage system as well as water tanks on the roofs,” Obeidi said.
At least 10 airstrikes were reported in the northern West Bank city on Monday as dozens of armored vehicles swarmed the city and refugee camp, bringing in total more than 1,000 Israeli troops into the city. It is the largest IDF operation in the West Bank in two decades, since the region was engulfed in the Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising).
The IDF said it was attacking a “joint operation center” used by the Jenin Brigades, a Palestinian militant group that had been formed after several smaller groups united. According to the IDF, the site was an “advanced observation and reconnaissance center,” communications hub, and storage site for weapons and explosives.
The IDF said it has seized an improvised missile launcher, weapons and ammunition from several caches in the refugee camp. It said late on Monday that the operation requires at least another 24 hours, but that it would take as long as was necessary.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a militant group in Gaza and the West Bank, said it will continue to fight in Jenin and that “all options” are available to “strike the enemy and respond to its barbaric aggression.”
Most of the West Bank is formally administered by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in Ramallah, which was formed in the 1990s as a precursor to the government of a future Palestinian state that has never materialized. However, the West Bank is ultimately under the authority of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which directly controls large portions of the territory and handles relations between the PNA and the Israeli Jewish settlers who live there in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The IDF previously carried out a major operation in Jenin in January, when it raided the Jenin refugee camp and killed 10 Palestinians, including children and elderly. The PNA also severed its security cooperation with the IDF in the aftermath, but when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with both Israeli and PNA leaders afterward, his security team effectively told the PNA that it should seek to reestablish its control over Jenin and Nablus using a US-made security plan.
According to US media reports, the PNA told Blinken’s team they already lack the legitimacy to operate during the day in those areas. The PNA was also cool to the suggestion since it required nothing from Israel, including reducing IDF raids into Palestinian cities.
Blinken’s team warned the PNA that if they failed, it could mean the rise of a Third Palestinian Intifada. Two previous uprisings dubbed “intifadas” (uprising, or shrugging off) occurred from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005, both resulting in major Israeli concessions, including the creation of the PNA, the pledge to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state, and the evacuation of all Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.