The Israeli army is carrying out a “vast anti-terrorist operation” in the city and region of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, on Monday, during which eight Palestinians were killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israeli forces are targeting ‘terrorist infrastructure’ and a ‘joint operations center’ in the Jenin area which they say serves as a command center for the ‘Jenin Brigade’, a local militant group, according to a statement released overnight from Sunday to Monday by the Israeli army.
In a separate statement released at 10:20 a.m. local time Monday, the army said exchanges of fire continued in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli forces targeted “a site for the production of weapons and the storage of explosive devices”, the army said.
“The city of Jenin and the Jenin camp are currently a combat zone,” she said earlier.
According to a new report released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, eight Palestinians were killed and 50 others injured – including ten in critical condition – during these fights.
In another incident, “a man was killed by (Israeli) occupation bullets at the northern entrance to al-Bireh, near Ramallah”, according to the same source.
According to an Israeli army statement, a “soldier was slightly injured by shrapnel from an army grenade during the operation” in Jenin and was hospitalized.
” By surprise “
According to Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, “terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians” were fomented in the Jenin camp. “We are hitting (this) hub of terrorism with force,” he told reporters.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he takes a “proactive approach” to terrorism.
“People knew we were probably going in, but the airstrike method, our target being right in the heart of the camp, took them by surprise,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, spokesman for the camp, told reporters. the Israeli army.
“We are acting against specific suspects,” he added, assuring that the army, which uses drones, is doing its best to spare the civilian population.
“There are aerial bombardments and a ground invasion,” Mahmoud al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jenin, told AFP.
“Several houses and sites were bombed […] Smoke rises everywhere. »
Ishmael Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, described the Israeli incursion as “brutal”. And the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad said in a statement that “all options are on the table to strike at the enemy (Israel) in response to its aggression in Jenin”.
Jordan denounced “the recent aggression targeting the city of Jenin”, issuing an “urgent appeal to the international community to […] put an end to Israeli attacks in the occupied Palestinian territories,” according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.
The city of Jenin, located in the northern West Bank and the adjacent refugee camp are regularly the scene of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians.
The Israeli army regularly carries out raids in the region, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, which is theoretically under the control of the Palestinian Authority, chaired by Mahmoud Abbas.
In June, seven people were killed, including two 15-year-olds in an Israeli army raid on a refugee camp in Jenin.
During this raid, the army also fired missiles from a helicopter, which had not happened in the West Bank since 2002, during the second Palestinian intifada, according to a Palestinian official.
The violence has increased in recent months and since the beginning of the year, at least 184 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed, according to an AFP count compiled from official sources.