As Israeli troops pulled out after a two-and-a-half-day incursion into the town of Jenin within the occupied West Financial institution, the Palestinian Well being Ministry mentioned on Thursday that the raid had killed no less than 12 folks and wounded 34 others.
Israeli raids into the West Financial institution have turn into rather more frequent because the warfare with Hamas started greater than two months in the past in Gaza, with dozens made in that point, and this one was unusually lengthy and lethal. Jenin and its refugee camp, strongholds of Palestinian armed resistance, have been widespread targets.
The Israeli navy mentioned on Thursday that it had disciplined three troopers concerned in filming themselves whereas a number of of them sang a Jewish prayer inside a mosque in Jenin. Movies of the incident, a probably inflammatory present of disrespect, circulated broadly on-line.
Residents reported seeing Israeli navy automobiles leaving Jenin on Thursday afternoon.
The navy in an announcement mentioned it had accomplished “a 60-hour-long extensive operation in the Jenin refugee camp and in the city of Jenin.” It reported detaining “14 wanted suspects, including three affiliated with Hamas,” in addition to some 60 others, and mentioned it had “eliminated 10 terrorists.”
The Palestinian Prisoners Membership, a nongovernmental rights group, put the variety of Palestinians arrested within the raid at greater than 100.
Seven Israeli troopers have been frivolously injured within the operation, which the navy mentioned had “exposed more than 10 underground facilities, dozens of rifles” and 7 explosives labs. The raid included an Israeli drone strike on Tuesday that the navy mentioned killed a number of individuals who had fired on Israeli forces.
As Israel and Hamas wage warfare within the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, battle has additionally heated up within the occupied West Financial institution, the place Hamas doesn’t exert management however has many backers. A current public opinion ballot by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research discovered support for Hamas within the West Financial institution to be larger than it was earlier than the warfare.
The Israeli navy describes its West Financial institution raids as a part of its counterterrorism efforts in opposition to Hamas. Jenin residents and native leaders say they’re geared toward displacing residents and making situations unlivable.
“The raids have gotten more frequent and also more aggressive and violent,” mentioned Mohammad Al Masri, a member of the native committee that runs the Jenin refugee camp, including: “They’ve started coming in and not differentiating between fighter and civilian.”
At the least 78 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli navy raids in Jenin because the Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, in line with the Palestinian Well being Ministry in Ramallah, making it the deadliest interval there in recent times.
Throughout your entire West Financial institution, the ministry says, no less than 286 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7 in clashes with Israeli troops and settlers.
The movies of Israeli troopers within the mosque undercut Israel’s efforts, by movies and social media posts, to advertise its navy as abiding by an ethical code that features cultural respect.
In a single video, a narrator might be heard saying, “Friends, this is the mosque in Jenin.” The digicam focuses on a soldier, crouched on the ground with a microphone, singing the prayer “Shema Yisrael,” a centerpiece of each day morning and night prayers, thought of by some to be an important prayer in Judaism. In one other, a soldier standing on a balcony sings the identical prayer.
The Israeli Defense Forces wrote on social media that the troopers have been “removed from operational activity.” It added, “The behavior of the soldiers in the videos is serious and stands in complete opposition to the values of the I.D.F.”
Even so, some in Israel expressed sympathy for the troopers concerned. “Every soldier, even if he made an error in judgment, deserves to have support,” Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the International Affairs and Protection Committee within the Israeli Parliament, mentioned in a post on Facebook.
The Jenin refugee camp is a built-up, impoverished neighborhood that homes Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced in the course of the wars that surrounded Israel’s creation in 1948, in addition to their descendants. Israeli raids there normally happen in a single day and contain bulldozers, which have destroyed a lot of the world’s infrastructure.
“It’s collective punishment,” mentioned Mohammad Sabaghi, who heads the committee that runs the camp. “There’s nothing that hasn’t been damaged or destroyed. Water, electricity, phone lines, the sewage system — everything.”
The Palestinian Authority’s well being minister, Mai Al-Kaila, mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that the state of affairs in Jenin’s hospitals was “very difficult, in light of the escalating aggression.” Through the raid, she mentioned, Israeli forces obstructed arrivals of wounded folks, looking out and detaining medical staff, and attacking ambulances.
The Israeli navy didn’t reply to requests for touch upon these accusations.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said {that a} father in Jenin had carried his 13-year-old son on foot to a hospital on Wednesday “because Israeli armored cars blocked ambulances,” including that the boy had been pronounced lifeless on arrival.
Wisam Baker, the director of the Jenin Hospital, the closest medical heart to the refugee camp, mentioned in an interview that Israeli forces had arrange checkpoints outdoors the hospital throughout some raids, complicating efforts to ship medical care to folks injured within the incursions.
“It’s difficult for our medical teams to go out and come in, and difficult for patients to enter the hospital, because it’s dangerous,” he mentioned.
Hiba Yazbek and Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem, and Ephrat Livni from Washington. Christina Goldbaum contributed reporting.
