Israeli forces launched several drone strikes in the West Bank city of Jenin for the second time in less than two weeks on Monday night, as part of a raid that sparked a gun battle that lasted until the morning and lasted until the morning. At least three people were killed.
With gunfire and explosives heard across the city hours after the attack and drones clearly audible overhead, the Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of various armed groups stationed in the city’s large refugee camp, said it clashed with Israeli forces.
At least six drones were seen flying over the city and the adjacent camp, a densely populated area of about 14,000 people in less than half a square kilometre.
“What is happening in the refugee camp is a real war,” said Khaled al-Ahmad, a Palestinian ambulance driver. “There were attacks from heaven on the camp, every time we drove up between five and seven ambulances and came back full of wounded.”
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that at least three people were killed and 27 others injured in Jenin, while another man died in the city of Ramallah after being shot in the head at a checkpoint.
The Israeli army claimed that its forces attacked a building that served as a command center for fighters from the Jenin Brigades, in what it described as a broad effort to combat terrorism in the West Bank.
Until last month, when the IDF carried out an attack on June 21 near Jenin, the IDF had not used drone strikes in the West Bank since 2006. But the escalating level of violence and pressure on ground forces means such tactics can continue. A military spokesman said.
“We are really exhausted,” he told reporters. “It’s because of the scale. And again, from our point of view, that will reduce friction,” he says, noting that the attacks were based on “accurate intelligence.”
However, the apparent scale of the raid underscores the importance of Jenin in the violence that has raged in the occupied West Bank for more than a year.
Hundreds of fighters from armed groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are stationed in the refugee camp, armed with an array of weapons smuggled into the West Bank or stolen from Israeli forces, and a growing arsenal of explosive devices.
A new war crime
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the operation as “a new war crime against our defenseless people.”
Monday’s raid saw the participation of a force described as “brigade-sized”, which indicates that From 1,000 to 2,000 soldiersIt was intended to help “break the safe-haven mentality of this camp, which has become a hornet’s nest,” said the spokesperson.
A statement issued by the Joint Operations Center of the Palestinian factions in Gaza said that its response would be determined by “the continuation of the aggression against Jenin and the behavior of the occupation.”
As Monday dawned, thick black smoke from burning tires lit by residents billowed in the streets as calls to support the fighters rang out from mosque loudspeakers.
The IDF said the attacked building served as an “advanced surveillance and reconnaissance center” and weapons and explosives site, as well as a coordination and communications center for armed fighters.
He provided aerial photos showing what he said was the target and indicating that the building was near two schools and a medical center.
Just days before last month’s drone attack, the military used helicopters to help extract troops and vehicles from a raid on the city, after militants used explosives against a force sent to detain two suspects.
The escalation of violence in the West Bank over the past 15 months has led to this Growing international alarmwith regular army raids on cities like Jenin, a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, and attacks by mobs of Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.
Israel captured the West Bank, which Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, along with East Jerusalem and Gaza, in the 1967 war. After decades of conflict, peace talks brokered by the United States have stalled since 2014.
