IDF launches ‘wide scale effort against terror’ in Jenin

(Times of Israel) – Israeli military forces have launched a major operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, focused on the city’s restive refugee camp, with reports of airstrikes on multiple targets.

A senior government official said that “the goal of this extensive operation is to end Jenin’s role as a sanctuary city for terror, and it will last as long as it needs to.”

The Palestinian Authority health ministry said three people were killed and at least 27 others were wounded in a number of strikes, as large numbers of Israeli ground forces were seen entering the city from several directions. The ministry said seven Palestinians were listed in serious condition.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that “security forces are now engaged in a widescale effort to thwart terror throughout Jenin” and had struck “terror infrastructure” in the city shortly after 1am.

The military said it carried out an airstrike against a joint war room serving various armed groups in the city and the so-called Jenin Battalion, which “served as an observation post, a gathering place for armed terrorists before and after terror acts, a cache for munitions and bombs and a communications centre.”

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters later that the operation was focused on the Jenin refugee camp and was “part of a series of actions that we carry out and will continue to carry out.”

“We did not come to occupy the refugee camp, this is not an operation against the Palestinian Authority but against the terror groups in Jenin,” he said.

Hagari branded the operation as a “brigade-level raid,” without giving it an official name.

He said that after the initial strike on the terror groups’ joint headquarters, the military carried out a number of drone strikes on wanted operatives and other sites used to store and manufacture weapons.

Palestinians reported that residents had been sent text messages asking them to remain indoors, while some members of armed groups had received texts urging them to lay down their arms and turn themselves in.

Members of a local Islamic Jihad wing, known as the Jenin Battalion, claimed its members had opened fire on Israeli troops in the city and targeted military vehicles, including a D9 bulldozer, with explosive devices.

Meanwhile, Palestinian media reports said that PA security forces arrested a prominent member of the so-called Jaba’ Battalion, another armed group based in the northern West Bank. Morad Malaysha had been wanted by Israel for over a year, the reports claimed.

Sporadic clashes and Israeli airstrikes continued as dawn broke in Jenin, Palestinian media reported.

Footage shared online purported to show armored personnel carriers on the outskirts of the Palestinian city.

Palestinian media outlets also claimed gunmen managed to down an IDF drone over the city.

The IDF said that during the operation, forces located a number of explosive devices and detained several suspects.

No Israeli soldiers were hurt in the operation as of Monday morning.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh put out a message of solidarity with Jenin along with other Gazan terror groups and warned that “The blood spilled in Jenin will determine the next stage, on all potential paths. Our people and their resistance are able to respond to this barbaric aggression.”

Security forces were preparing for possible rocket fire from the Strip.

A senior security source told the Ynet news site that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza had been sent messages that the operation was limited to Jenin and that they should not intervene, or “we’ll respond severely.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hailed the operation in a tweet, saying that “anyone who harms the citizens of Israel will pay a heavy price.”

“We are closely monitoring the behavior of our enemy, the defense establishment is prepared for any scenario,” Gallant added.

In an apparently unrelated incident, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said a 21-year-old man, named as Muhammed Hassanein, was shot dead by Israeli troops at the entrance to the city of al-Bireh, close to Ramallah. There was no immediate comment from the IDF on the incident.

In another incident, Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the West Bank settlement of Avnei Hefetz on Monday morning, causing slight damage to a building, the IDF said. Troops were scanning the area for suspects.

Avnei Hefetz, close to the Palestinian city of Tulkarem, has come under fire several times in recent months.

Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, slammed the IDF operation in Jenin, calling it a “new war crime against our defenseless people.”

For weeks there had been speculation about a major Israeli military operation in the West Bank, following a string of shooting attacks and intense resistance to IDF raids in Palestinian cities.

Last month, an Israeli drone struck a car carrying three Palestinian gunmen who had just opened fire at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank near Jenin, marking the first targeted killings in the West Bank since 2006.

That incident came days after attack helicopters were used in a military raid in Jenin in which seven Palestinians were killed, including two teens, and eight soldiers were injured by a large roadside bomb and in clashes with Palestinian gunmen.

Last week, Palestinians in the Jenin area attempted to launch two homemade rockets at Israeli towns, footage showed. The rockets landed in Palestinian-controlled territory in the northern West Bank and did not cross the border into Israel.

The northern West Bank, and especially the city of Jenin and its environs, have long been considered by the IDF as hotbeds of terrorism, highlighted by a string of attacks in early 2022 of which many were carried out by residents of the area.

Hagari said that since last year, some 50 shooting attacks were carried out by residents of the area, and 19 wanted Palestinians escaped to Jenin to seek refuge there from Israeli forces.

In the US, Israeli Ambassador Mike Herzog tweeted overnight: “Over the past two years, Jenin has become a major hub of terrorism and an Iranian stronghold close to Israeli population centres. Most of the terror attacks against Israelis originated from Jenin. No nation would sit idly by as terrorists strike its citizens.”

Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been high across the West Bank for the past year and a half, with the military carrying out near-nightly raids, amid a series of deadly Palestinian terror attacks.

Since the beginning of this year, Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have killed 24 people.

According to a tally by The Times of Israel, 137 West Bank Palestinians have been killed during that time, most of them during clashes with security forces or while carrying out attacks, but some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under unclear circumstances.