The Israeli military operation in the northern occupied West Bank continues. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Friday, 20 people have been killed in three days of Israeli raids, including two teenagers aged 13 and 17, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Israeli army claims for its part to have killed “20 terrorists” since the start of its military operation on Wednesday.
It also said it had “eliminated” two Palestinians who were preparing to commit “car bomb” attacks near settlements on the night of Friday to Saturday. Hamas hailed a “coordinated attack” carried out “at a sensitive time, while the (Israeli) occupier is leading an escalation in the West Bank.”
In this Palestinian territory separated from Gaza, Israeli soldiers killed three Hamas fighters in Jenin on Friday, including the commander of the Palestinian Islamist movement in the city, Wissam Khazem, and a fourth man, aged 82, according to the Palestinian agency Wafa.
Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, and Islamic Jihad have announced that at least 13 of those killed were fighters from their armed branches. The Red Crescent has also recorded 55 wounded since Wednesday and several shootings and attacks on its ambulances.
“Second Gaza”
The Israeli army launched this operation, described as “anti-terrorist”, by sending columns of armoured vehicles supported by aircraft to Jenin, Tulkarem, Tubas and their refugee camps, strongholds of armed groups fighting against Israel. It said it had arrested “17 suspects of terrorist activities” and seized “large quantities of weapons”.
Since Friday, Israeli soldiers have only been patrolling the city of Jenin and its refugee camps, a symbolic bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel, after withdrawing from Toubas and Tulkarem and their refugee camps, tearing up the streets and carrying out strikes, particularly air strikes, on vehicles or houses where Palestinians were located.
In the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarem, residents were taking stock of the damage on Friday as they saw buildings destroyed and roads torn up by Israeli bulldozers. “We are a second Gaza,” laments Nayef Alaajmeh.
International condemnations
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Thursday for an “immediate end” to the operation, “strongly condemning the loss of human life, particularly of minors.” The UN warned of military operations being carried out “near hospitals” and the “serious damage” inflicted on infrastructure.
London said it was “deeply concerned by the methods” of Israel, calling for an “urgent de-escalation”. For France, these operations “worsen a climate (…) of unprecedented violence”, with Spain denouncing “a clearly unacceptable outbreak of violence (…)”.
Washington, which says it opposes any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, announced new sanctions targeting “extremist” Israeli settlers on Wednesday. Benjamin Netanyahu considered this “imposition of sanctions against Israeli citizens” to be “very serious.”
Israeli incursions into the Palestinian autonomous zone are a daily occurrence in the occupied West Bank, where deadly violence has been escalating since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, but rarely on such a scale and coordination.