Israel’s biggest military raid continues, Palestinian deaths mount

West Bank, The Gulf Observer: Israel’s biggest military raid for years in the occupied West Bank continued for a second day, leaving at least 10 Palestinians dead and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

The raid, launched under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, targeted the northern city of Jenin and employed armoured vehicles, army bulldozers and drone strikes.

On Tuesday morning, shops were shuttered in Jenin, with very few people on the streets littered with debris and burned roadblocks from the previous day’s fighting.

Drones hummed overhead, an AFP reporter said.

The latest Israeli raid has prompted UN aid agencies to voice alarm at the scale of the incident, adding that there were restrictions on medical access.

“We are alarmed at the scale of air and ground operations that are taking place in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, and airstrikes hitting a densely populated refugee camp,” Vanessa Huguenin, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, told a briefing. She said three children were among those killed, without providing details.

“First responders have been prevented from entering the (Jenin) refugee camp, including to reach persons who have been critically injured,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, referring to restrictions put in place by Israeli forces.

Israel stepped up deadly raids

In the city’s refugee camp –– an urban community that was home to 18,000 people –– multiple streets were ripped up leaving broken electricity cables, oil, and pools of water apparently after an Israeli anti-bomb bulldozer passed.

The Israeli army said its “counterterrorism activities” in Jenin had continued overnight into Tuesday, with forces acting to “neutralise” an underground shaft used to store explosives in the refugee camp.

“Furthermore, IDF soldiers located and dismantled two operational situation rooms belonging to terrorist organisations in the area,” the army said in a Tuesday statement, referring to the Israeli army.

Death toll rises

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli troops did “not intend to stay in the camp”, but “we are getting ready for the more severe situation” of prolonged fighting.

A total of 10 people were killed and 100 others wounded, 20 of them seriously, Palestine’s health ministry said.

A wounded Israeli soldier was evacuated by military helicopter.

Since the start of the operation about 3,000 people had fled t heir homes in the Jenin refugee camp, deputy governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al Roub told AFP, adding arrangements were being made to house them in schools and other shelters in Jenin city.

In the Monday night darkness, women carried their youngest children while older ones lugged belongings through the streets.

Jenin resident Badr Shagoul told AFP: “I saw them taking bulldozers into the camp, they were destroying buildings… These were people’s homes.”