Hundreds of Palestinians were displaced, 12 were killed, and over 30 were injured in the city of Jenin in the West Bank since the IDF’s new military operation began three days ago. According to the IDF, the operation aims to prevent the coordinated organization of Palestinian militant groups in the Jenin refugee camp, which was established in 1953 to house those displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Witnesses reported seeing bulldozers inside the Jenin refugee camp and said the IDF was asking residents to leave. An IDF spokesperson stated that the operation involved clashes inside mosques and hospitals, accusing Palestinian fighters of using these locations as bases.
In the West Bank, over 800 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 1,800 settler attacks on Palestinian villages have taken place since October 2023.
The entire city of Jenin, which was occupied by Israel along with the rest of the West Bank in 1967, and particularly its refugee camp, is considered the base for many Palestinian militant groups, according to The “NYT”.
Many of these groups, including Hamas, oppose the Palestinian Authority (controlled by Fatah), which has limited control over parts of the West Bank. For this reason, the Palestinian Authority carried out its own raids in Jenin in December to dismantle such groups.
The operation was announced shortly after the new U.S. president, D. Trump, reversed Biden’s sanctions on far-right Israeli settlers, while settlers were conducting raids on Palestinian villages in the West Bank. According to The NYT, the Israeli prime minister is using the operation as a “distraction” from images of Hamas militants marching in the streets of Gaza, highlighting his failure in his primary goal of dismantling the organization.
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