(Jenin) Fighting raged Saturday in the northern West Bank, the fourth day of a vast Israeli military operation against armed groups in the occupied Palestinian territory, whose residents described “black days”.
In the besieged Gaza Strip, devastated by nearly eleven months of war, polio vaccinations began on Saturday, Dr. Moussa Abed, director of primary care at the Hamas government’s health ministry, told AFP.
The vaccination campaign will officially be launched on Sunday, during “humanitarian pauses” of three days each, accepted by Israel, according to the World Health Organization.
The first case of polio was recently confirmed in an infant in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory where the disease was eradicated 25 years ago. The UN has sent 1.2 million doses of oral polio vaccine.
On the sidelines of its offensive in Gaza, where the Civil Defense said on Saturday that it had extracted 29 bodies from the rubble, the Israeli army has been carrying out a large-scale operation in the north of the occupied West Bank since Wednesday.
“We are afraid, we are terrified, look at all the damage,” said Faïza Abou Jaafar, a resident of Jenin, from where Israeli tanks have withdrawn to redeploy around the city’s refugee camp, on Saturday.
PHOTO RONALDO SCHEMIDT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Palestinian girl searches for personal items in the middle of the courtyard of a house destroyed during an overnight raid by the Israeli army in Jenin, West Bank, on August 31, 2024.
“We are living in dark times,” says this mother. Around her, metal doors hang above pieces of torn asphalt.
Here, walls have collapsed, there lies a tiled roof. Further on, the exterior stairs of a house are only held up by a rickety pillar.
The Israeli army claimed to have “eliminated” two Palestinians overnight from Friday to Saturday, who were preparing to carry out two explosive attacks near settlements in the southern West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed Islamist group, hailed it as a “coordinated attack.”
In total, at least 22 Palestinians, mostly fighters, have been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli army says they are all “terrorists.” Among those killed is a man in his 80s, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The Israeli army launched this operation by sending columns of armored vehicles supported by aircraft to Jenin, Tulkarem, Toubas and their refugee camps, strongholds of armed groups active against the Israeli occupation.
PHOTO AMMAR AWAD, REUTERS
An Israeli Apache helicopter flies over Jenin, West Bank, on August 31, 2024.
“Anti-terrorist” operation
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and Islamic Jihad said at least 14 of those killed were fighting in their armed wings.
Since Friday, Israeli soldiers have no longer been patrolling Jenin but only its refugee camp, after withdrawing from Toubas and Tulkarem, destroying the streets and carrying out strikes on vehicles and homes.
PHOTO AMMAR AWAD, REUTERS
Two Palestinians are arrested by Israeli security forces during an Israeli raid in Jenin, West Bank, on August 31, 2024.
This operation, described as “anti-terrorist” by the Israeli army, has sparked concern and protests from the international community.
Israeli incursions are a daily occurrence in the occupied West Bank, the scene of deadly violence that has flared up since the start of the war in Gaza, but rarely reaches such a scale.
Nine dead from the same family
In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory separated from the West Bank, nine adults from the same family died in an Israeli strike on Saturday on a house in the Nusseirat refugee camp (center), Marwan Abou Nassar, a doctor at al-Awda hospital, told AFP.
During the night, an Israeli strike targeted the Jabaliya refugee camp (North), causing deaths and injuries, according to Ahmed al-Kahlout, from the Civil Defense in Gaza.
By the light of torches or mobile phones, rescuers carried the injured to ambulances, others searched for possible missing people in the rubble, enveloped in clouds of dust, according to images from AFPTV.
In Khan Younis (south), the Palestinian Red Crescent reported five deaths following the bombing of a house.
The Israeli army announced on Friday that it had ended its ground operations in the regions of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah (center).
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, which left 1,199 people dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Of the 251 people abducted that day, 103 are still being held in Gaza, including 33 declared dead by the army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian movement that seized power in Gaza in 2007 and which it, like the United States and the European Union, labels a terrorist group.
Israeli retaliation for the October 7 attack has killed at least 40,691 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry, caused a humanitarian and health disaster and displaced most of the 2.4 million residents. The majority of the dead are women and minors, according to the UN.
The war raises fears of a regional conflagration, while exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah are almost daily on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
On Saturday, the Lebanese Islamist movement claimed to have launched “explosive-laden drones” at the Israeli barracks of Beit Hillel, “in response to the enemy’s attacks” against southern Lebanon and “the resulting fires.”
According to the Israeli army, “an air target was identified, crossing Lebanon and falling in the Beit Hillel area. No damage or injuries were reported.”
Shortly after, the army said it had “struck the structure from which the terrorists were operating,” and “throughout the day” its artillery “struck a number of areas in southern Lebanon,” it said.