AL-FARAA REFUGEE CAMP (West Bank), Aug 28: Israeli forces launched a large operation in the occupied West Bank overnight and into Wednesday, killing at least 10 Hamas militants and sealing off the volatile city of Jenin.
The ongoing operation was among the largest in the West Bank in months, and a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict extends far beyond the war in Gaza that began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Israel says it is rooting out West Bank militants to prevent attacks, while Palestinians fear it intends to broaden the war and expel them from territories they want for a future state.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said “large forces” had entered Jenin, long a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank.
He said Israeli forces killed three militants in an airstrike in Tulkarem and four in an airstrike in Al-Faraa. He said another five suspected militants were arrested, and that the raids were the first stage of an even larger operation. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Jenin, according to Palestinian officials.
Hamas announced that 10 of its fighters had been killed in the West Bank on Wednesday, including three of the four men killed in Jenin. It was not immediately clear if the fourth was also a fighter. The military said all of the dead were militants.
The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said on Palestinian radio that Israeli forces had surrounded the city, blocking exit and entry points and access to hospitals, and ripping up infrastructure in the camp.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israeli forces had blocked the roads leading to a hospital with dirt barriers and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin. Shoshani said the military was trying to prevent militants from taking shelter in hospitals.
Hamas called on Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up, calling the raids part of a larger plan to expand the war in Gaza and blaming the escalation on US support for Israel.
The militant group called on security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which cooperate with Israel, to “join the sacred battle of our people.” (AP)
