Israel’s defense minister said the army was applying the “method” of the Gaza war in a major raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces are applying methods learned during the war on Gaza to their ongoing “Iron Wall” military operation in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s defense minister said, where troops have killed at least 10 people in Jenin and ordered residents to flee the refugee camp in the region. .
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the Jenin operation, entering its third day, marks a shift in Israel’s military plan in the occupied West Bank and is “the first lesson in the method of repeated raids to Gaza.”
An Israeli military spokesman declined to provide details of the Jenin operation, which began Tuesday and is the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime stronghold. of resistance to Israel’s decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territory. .
Residents of the Jenin refugee camp reported constant gunfire and explosions on Wednesday, while Palestinian health services reported at least four injuries in the camp.
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Wednesday that Israeli forces used “advanced weapons and methods of warfare, including airstrikes” on the Jenin camp, which is now “almost uninhabitable » with around 2,000 families displaced from the region. December.
Israel’s “massive operation” in Jenin “also threatens to undermine the fragile ceasefire reached days ago in Gaza,” said Roland Friedrich, UNRWA’s director of affairs for the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israeli media also reported that two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday in the Wadi Burqin area near the city of Jenin.
Jenin resisted Israeli occupation for decades, earning its reputation as the “capital of Palestinian resistance.” Here’s why it’s still important today. pic.twitter.com/Yu9nkRi12w
– AJ+ (@ajplus) January 22, 2025
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces surrounded a building in the town of Burqin and ordered its occupants to leave using a loudspeaker.
Israeli drone airstrikes hit the house while soldiers on the ground fired anti-tank grenades at the building, which was then razed by military bulldozers.
As the Israeli raid began on Tuesday, 10 Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured in the Jenin area, including children and medical staff.
Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told the AFP news agency that the situation was “very difficult” because Israeli military bulldozers had destroyed all roads leading to the Jenin refugee camp and hospital. government office in Jenin. Israeli forces have also arrested around 20 people from villages around Jenin since the operation began on Tuesday, he said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint” from Israeli forces in Jenin and expressed deep concern, according to his deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq.
On Monday, Guterres told a UN Security Council meeting of his fears about “an existential threat to the integrity and contiguity” of Gaza and the occupied West Bank from Israel and in a context of “incessant” expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The UN chief said that “senior Israeli officials are talking openly about formally annexing all or part of the West Bank in the coming months.”
“Such an annexation would constitute a most serious violation of international law,” he said.
