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Thousands of Palestinians flee Jenin refugee camp after major Israeli raid
Thousands of Palestinians flee Jenin refugee camp after major Israeli raid in West Bank
(about 4 hours later)
Deputy governor says about 3,000 have left, to be housed in schools and shelters, as Arab states condemn military operation
Arrangements are being made to house refugees from the camp in other locations, as Arab countries condemn military operation
Several thousand Palestinians have fled their homes in the Jenin refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank after the launch of the biggest Israeli military operation in the area in two decades, Palestinian officials say.
Thousands of Palestinians have fled the Jenin refugee camp after the Israeli army launched a major operation in the occupied West Bank, a senior Palestinian official has said.
“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” the Jenin deputy governor, Kamal Abu al-Roub, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday, adding that arrangements were being made to house refugees in schools and other shelters in Jenin city.
“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub told the AFP new agency, adding that arrangements were being made to house them in schools and other shelters in the city of Jenin. He said about 18,000 Palestinians normally reside in the camp.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service gave the same figure and said it expected the exodus to continue, amid suggestions from Israel that Operation Home and Garden, which began in the early hours of Monday, could last several more days.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service gave the same figure and said it expected the exodus to continue, amid suggestions from Israel the operation could last for days.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said many people in the camp needed food, drinking water and milk powder, as the fighting raged for a second day.
Israel on Monday launched its most intense military operation in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades, carrying out a series of drone strikes and sending hundreds of troops on an open-ended mission into a militant stronghold. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded.
There were hours-long queues at checkpoints on Highway 60 – the main north-south route in the West Bank – as those attempting to access or leave Jenin, including at least one ambulance, were forced on to sometimes unpaved mountain roads.
Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, confirmed to AFP that residents of the camp were leaving. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said many camp residents were in need of food, drinking water and milk powder.
The Palestinian health ministry said at least 10 people had been killed and 100 injured, 20 of them critically, since Israel launched a series of drone strikes and sent up to 2,000 ground troops, backed by armoured bulldozers and snipers on rooftops, into the city and its refugee camp.
The camp on the outskirts of the northern West Bank city of Jenin was set up in the 1950s and the ghetto-like area has long been viewed as a hotbed of what Palestinians consider armed resistance and Israelis see as terrorism.
With Israel alert for reprisal attacks, Israeli police said on Tuesday that a motorist had caused six casualties in a car-ramming in Tel Aviv, after carrying out a suspected stabbing attack. They said it was a terrorist attack. The alleged attacker was killed at the scene by an armed civilian, police told Israel’s Army Radio. Later, the Tel Aviv police chief said the suspect was a Palestinian from the West Bank.
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.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Jenin operation was targeting a major Palestinian militant command centre, with Israel carrying out an airstrike on Monday afternoon near a mosque in the camp that the army said was being used by Palestinian gunmen.
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.
Jenin camp was set up in the 1950s to house refugees fleeing their homes in 1948 after the creation of the state of Israel. The ghetto-like area, plagued by poverty, has long been a hotbed of what Palestinians consider armed resistance and Israelis call terrorism.
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 rise in violence that has resulted in some of the worst bloodshed in that area in nearly two decades.
Roub said about 18,000 Palestinians lived in the crowded camp, but the exact figure is not known. The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency puts the number at 14,000, while official Palestinian data from 2020 says it is home to 12,000 people.
The Palestinians and three Arab countries with normalised ties with Israel – Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – condemned the incursion, as did the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Hundreds of armed militants from groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are based there, and the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority, viewed by many Palestinians as a subcontractor for Israeli security, has little presence.
The White House said it defended Israel’s right to security and was monitoring the situation on the West Bank closely, while Britain’s prime minster, Rishi Sunak, called on the Israeli military to exercise restraint.
The Jenin Brigades, a unit of armed men from different factions, has been blamed for several terrorist attacks against Israelis as the security situation across Israel and the West Bank has deteriorated. The past 18 months have seen the worst bloodshed in the two areas since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, ended in 2005.
“While we support Israel’s right to self-defence, the protection of civilians must be prioritised,” a spokesperson said.
Operation Home and Garden has drawn comparisons with Israeli military tactics employed during that war and comes at a time of growing political pressure for a tough response to recent attacks on Israeli settlers, including a shooting last month that killed four Israelis.
Palestinian leadership in the West Bank held an emergency meeting late on Monday, saying it would halt its already limited contacts with Israel. Leaders said a freeze on security coordination would remain in place, and they vowed to step up activity against Israel in the United Nations and international bodies. They also planned to minimise contacts with the United States.
Monday’s events bring the death toll of Palestinians killed in the West Bank this year to 133. A total of 24 Israelis have been killed, and a surprise five-day Israeli operation in the blockaded Gaza Strip killed another 34 Palestinians and one Israeli.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, defended the incursion saying “in recent months, Jenin has turned into a safe haven for terrorism. We are putting an end to this.”
The Palestinians and three Arab countries with normalised ties with Israel – Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – condemned the incursion, as did the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
He said troops were destroying militant command centres and confiscating weapons supplies and factories. He claimed the operation was taking place with “minimum harm to civilians”.
The White House said it defended Israel’s right to security and was monitoring the situation in the West Bank closely.
Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesperson, said there were a total of about 10 airstrikes – most of them aimed at keeping gunmen away from ground troops. He accused militants of operating next to a United Nations building and storing weapons inside a mosque.
In the UK, Foreign Office minister Anne Marie Trevelyn called on Israel to show proportionality and restraint, but did not urge it to halt the operation, in response to an urgent question the Commons. She said the British government was deeply concerned by the cycle of violence in the region and adding de-escalation will be sought in a meeting with Israel’s ambassador.
He said Israel launched the operation because about 50 attacks over the past year had emanated from Jenin. Hagari added that the incursion was expected to last between one and three days, and Israel did not intend to hold ground.
The Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Alicia Kearns, warned the world was standing on the precipice of a third intifida and called for support for diplomatic initiatives to end the violence.
UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that the escalation in the West Bank was “very dangerous.” Asked about the Israeli drone attacks on residential areas, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said: “Attacks on heavily populated areas are violations of international humanitarian law.”
The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank held an emergency meeting late on Monday, and said it would halt its already limited contacts with Israel. Leaders said a freeze on security coordination would remain, and vowed to step up activity against Israel in the UN and international bodies. They also planned to minimise contacts with the US.
The joint aerial and ground incursion into the camp 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.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, defended the incursion, saying that in recent months Jenin had turned into a “safe haven for terrorism”. He said he was putting an end to this with “minimum harm to civilians”.
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 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 UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said the escalation in the West Bank was “very dangerous”. The UN spokesperson Farhan Haq, asked about the Israeli drone attacks on residential areas, said: “Attacks on heavily populated areas are violations of international humanitarian law.”
Only days before a drone strike last month 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 suspects.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said Israel had launched the operation because of about 50 attacks over the past year from Jenin. Hagari added that the incursion was expected to last up to three days, and Israel did not intend to hold ground in Jenin or any areas under the supposed jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
After the last major raid in Jenin, Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank in an attack that led to a rampage by settlers in Palestinian villages and towns.
Jenin and nearby Nablus have been the main 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. Vigilante attacks by West Bank-based Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages are also growing in scale and scope.
With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
Despite the step-up in military activity, the security situation has deteriorated and Palestinian attacks are becoming deadlier: four Israelis were killed at a petrol station in the West Bank last month.
