Israel has launched a major aerial and ground offensive into the West Bank city of Jenin, its biggest military operation in the Palestinian territory in years, in what it described as an “extensive counter-terrorism effort.”
According to the Guardian, At least eight Palestinians were killed and 50 injured, 10 seriously, in the attack that began at about 1am on Monday, with the death toll likely to rise, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Launching at least 10 drone strikes on buildings, a brigade of Israeli troops – suggesting between 1,000 and 2,000 soldiers – backed by armoured bulldozers and snipers on rooftops entered the city and its refugee camp, encountering fire from Palestinians after Israel informed the White House of its plans.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called the operation “a new war crime against our defenceless people”.
Lynn Hastings, the UN’s resident humanitarian coordinator, described “alarm” at the “scale of Israeli forces operation in Jenin,” on Twitter adding, “airstrikes were used in the densely populated refugee camp. Several dead and critically wounded. Access to all injured must be ensured.”
In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the domestic intelligence service, Shin Bet, said they attacked a command centre in the Jenin refugee camp that was used by a local militant group.
Images from inside Jenin showed armed and masked Palestinian fighters on the streets as gun battles and explosions continued into Monday morning.
At a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, the sound of increasingly heavy gun battles and aircraft overhead could be heard as the day wore on.
In an escalation of the violence, Israel carried out an airstrike near a mosque in the city which it said was being used by Palestinian gunmen to target Israeli forces.
“Exchanges of fire are taking place with gunmen adjacent to a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp,” the IDF said. “An IDF aircraft struck to remove the threat.”
The incursion into Jenin is the first since the 2002 Battle of Jenin during the second intifada, when more than 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in over a week of fighting, including 13 Israeli soldiers in a single incident.
Monday’s events 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 resulted in some of the worst bloodshed in that area in nearly two decades.
