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At least three Palestinians killed as Israeli forces strike West Bank city of Jenin Israel launches biggest military operation in West Bank in years
(about 3 hours later)
Residents report possible drone strike as Israeli military says extensive operation hit command centre for Palestinian fighters At least four Palestinians killed and dozens injured as major Israeli offensive targets city of Jenin
Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Jenin on Sunday night, reportedly carrying out an air-based strike and setting off a gun battle that lasted into Monday morning and killed at least three Palestinians. Israel has begun a major aerial and ground offensive in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, its biggest military operation in the Palestinian territory in years, as violence continues to surge in the conflict.
The Israeli military said its forces struck a building that served as a command centre for fighters from the Jenin Brigades in what it described as an extensive counter-terrorism effort in the West Bank. At least five Palestinians were killed and 28 injured in the attack that began at about 1am on Monday, with the death toll likely to rise, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
With the sounds of gunfire and explosives heard across the city hours after the strike and drones clearly audible overhead, the Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of different militant groups based in the city’s large refugee camp, said it was engaging the Israeli forces. Gun battles with Palestinian fighters and explosions continued into Monday morning, in the raid the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said targeted a major command centre for the Jenin Brigades militant group in the city’s slum-like refugee camp.
“What is going on in the refugee camp is real war,” said a Palestinian ambulance driver, Khaled Alahmad. “There were strikes from the sky targeting the camp. Every time we drive in around five to seven ambulances and we come back full with injured people.” Thick black smoke from burning tyres set alight by residents swirled through the streets, while calls to support the fighters rang out from loudspeakers in mosques. Every entrance to the camp was encircled by Israeli soldiers.
At least six drones could be seen circling over the city but the military declined to specify whether Monday’s operations included a drone strike, which had not been seen in the West Bank for more than 15 years until a strike last month killed three militant gunmen near Jenin. Some residents said the attack involved a missile fired from the air. “What is going on in the refugee camp is real war,” said a Palestinian ambulance driver, Khaled Alahmad. “There were strikes from the sky. Every time we drive in around five to seven ambulances and we come back full with injured people.”
However, the apparent scale of the raid underlined the importance of Jenin in the violence that has surged across the occupied West Bank for more than a year. The Jenin operation led to protests overnight across the West Bank, including at a checkpoint near the city of Ramallah, in which a Palestinian man died after being shot in the head by the army. Israel’s air defence systems were put on alert for potential retaliatory rocket fire from the blockaded Gaza Strip after several Palestinian factions vowed revenge.
Hundreds of armed fighters from militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are based in the refugee camp, which has been hit by a series of major raids by Israeli forces since the start of the year. An IDF spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Jenin operation was a focused, brigade-sized raid that was expected to last between one and three days, and that Israel did not intend to hold ground.
As daylight broke on Monday, thick black smoke from burning tyres set alight by residents swirled through the streets while calls to support the fighters rang out from loudspeakers in mosques. As dawn broke on Monday, drones continued to circle over the city. The IDF carried out its first drone strike in more than 15 years in Jenin last month, marking a major escalation in this year’s fighting, but declined to specify what kind of aerial attack was carried out in Monday’s operation.
The Palestinian health ministry confirmed at least three people had been killed in Jenin. Separately, a man was killed in the city of Ramallah after being shot in the head at a checkpoint. The camp on the outskirts of the northern West Bank city was set up in the 1950s and the ghetto-like area, home to about 11,000 people, has long been viewed as a hotbed of what Palestinians see as armed resistance, and Israelis as terrorism.
The Israeli military said the target functioned as an “advanced observation and reconnaissance centre” and a weapons and explosives site as well as a coordination and communications hub for the militant fighters. Hundreds of armed fighters from militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are based there, and the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority has next to no presence.
It provided an aerial photograph showing what it said was the target and which indicated the building hit was near two schools and a medical centre. The Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of armed men from different factions, has been blamed for several terror attacks against Israeli citizens as the security situation across Israel and the West Bank has deteriorated over the past 18 months.
Only days before last month’s drone strike, the army used helicopter gunships to help extract troops and vehicles from a raid on the city, after fighters used explosives against a force sent in to arrest two militant suspects. Jenin and nearby Nablus have been the major targets of the now-more-than-year-old Israeli Operation Breakwater, which has involved near-nightly raids and some of the fiercest fighting in the West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, came to an end in 2005. Vigilante attacks by West-Bank based Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages are also growing in scale and scope.
The escalating violence in the West Bank over the past 15 months has caused mounting international alarm, with regular army raids in cities such as Jenin, a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and rampages by Jewish settler mobs against Palestinian villages. Only days before last month’s drone strike in Jenin, for the first time since the second intifada, the army used helicopter gunships to help extract troops and vehicles from a raid on the city, after fighters used explosives against a force sent in to arrest two militant suspects.
Israel captured the West Bank, which the Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, along with East Jerusalem and Gaza, in the 1967 Middle Eastern war. Following decades of conflict, peace talks that had been brokered by the US have been frozen since 2014. More than 180 Palestinians and 24 Israelis have been killed this year in the escalating violence, inflaming fears that the region is moving closer towards a new chapter of full-scale conflict.
News agencies contributed to this report.