A major military operation is being carried out on Monday by the Israeli army, killing seven people in the occupied West Bank so far.
The Israeli army is carrying out a “massive anti-terrorist operation” in the city and region of Jenin in the West Bank on Monday, during which seven Palestinians were killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
In a statement issued overnight Sunday-Monday, the Israeli military said the forces were targeting “terrorist infrastructure” and a “joint operations center” in the Jenin area which it said serves as a center for command to the “Jenin Brigade”, a local militant group.
The army also said in a separate statement on Monday that exchanges of fire continued in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli forces targeted “a site for the production of weapons and the storage of explosive devices”, the army said.
“The city of Jenin and the Jenin camp are currently a combat zone,” she said earlier.
According to a new report released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, seven patients were killed and 27 others injured – including seven seriously – during these fights.
In another incident, “a man was killed by (Israeli) occupation bullets at the northern entrance to al-Bireh, near Ramallah”, according to the same source.
According to an Israeli army statement, “a soldier was slightly injured by shrapnel from an army grenade during the Jenin operation and hospitalized. »
” By surprise “
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he is taking a “proactive approach” to terrorism.
“People knew we were probably going in, but the airstrike method, our target being right in the heart of the camp, took them by surprise,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, spokesman for the camp, told reporters. the Israeli army.
“We are acting against specific suspects,” he added, assuring that the army, which uses drones, is doing its best to spare the civilian population.
Ishmael Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, described the Israeli incursion as “brutal”. And the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad said in a statement that “all options are on the table to strike at the enemy (Israel) in response to its aggression in Jenin”.
Jordan denounced “the recent aggression targeting the city of Jenin”, launching an “urgent appeal to the international community to (…) put an end to the Israeli attacks in the occupied Palestinian territories”, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The city of Jenin, located in the northern West Bank and the adjacent refugee camp are regularly the scene of clashes between Israeli forces and refugees.
The army regularly carried out raids in the region, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, which is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority, executed by Mahmoud Abbas.
In June, seven people were killed, including two 15-year-olds in an Israeli army raid on a refugee camp in Jenin.
During this raid, the army also fired missiles from a helicopter, which had not happened in the West Bank since 2002, during the second Palestinian intifada, according to a Palestinian official.
The violence has increased in recent months and since the beginning of the year, at least 183 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed, according to an AFP count compiled from official sources.