Israel-Palestine news: Israeli Forces ‘withdraw from Jenin’ as raid in West Bank continues

Since March 2022, Jenin and outlying areas in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank have drawn intensified raids ordered by Israel’s nationalist-religious government after a spate of Palestinian street attacks. The Jenin camp has long been a hotbed of militants with an array of light weapons and a growing arsenal of explosive devices. The Israeli military regularly accuses militant groups of basing fighters within densely populated urban areas such as refugee camps that date back to 1948. Many of the militants live in the camp, often with their families.

In January, Israeli forces killed seven gunmen and two civilians in a raid in Jenin. Last month, militants and Israeli troops waged an hours-long gunbattle in which six Palestinians were killed and over 90 wounded. Seven Israeli personnel were wounded by a landmine that crippled their armoured vehicle. Palestinian gunmen shot dead four Israelis near a Jewish settlement in retaliation, prompting settlers to rampage through Palestinians towns, torching buildings and cars.

This slide into some of the worst violence since the Palestinians’ 2000-05 Intifada (uprising) comes amid a prolonged absence of peace talks envisaging Palestinian statehood, an increasingly weak Palestinian political leadership and a steady expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land under Israel’s most hardline nationalist government ever.

Airstrikes targeting Palestinian militants in a crowded residential area. Armored bulldozers plowing through narrow streets, crushing cars and piling up debris. Protesters burning tires. A mounting death toll.

Israel’s large-scale military raid into the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Monday had undeniable similarities with the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s — a period that claimed thousands of lives.

But the current fighting is also different from those intense years of violence. It’s more limited in scope, with Israeli military operations focused on several strongholds of Palestinian militants.

Read more on the ongoing conflict here:

Israeli forces began to withdraw late on Tuesday from the Palestinian city of Jenin, a defence source said, after carrying out one of the biggest military operations in the occupied West Bank in years.

The U.N. Security Council will meet behind closed-doors on Friday to discuss the Middle East, diplomats said, following Israel’s biggest West Bank military operation in years.

The meeting was requested by the United Arab Emirates “in light of the alarming developments in Palestine,” diplomats said.

CCTV video circulated online showed a pickup truck mounting a pavement and cycle lane outside a mall at high speed, striking at least two people.

The driver is seen exiting through a window, stabbing a cafe-goer and chasing other people with knife in hand.

“I saw the grey pickup pull up at peak speed and ram the bus stop, powerfully. In the first seconds you think it could have been a mistake by the driver,” said Liron Bahash, a sports teacher who was at the scene on a lunch break.

“He exited through the window, not the door, like in a movie, with a knife in hand and started chasing civilians. Now you understand it’s an attack. We ran for our lives,” Bahash told Reuters.

Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir came to the scene and repeated his call for citizens to carry weapons in order to thwart street attacks.

“Once Israel began its activity in Jenin, we knew that terrorism will try to rear its head,” he said.

I woke up today to the second day of the biggest Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp since 2002. Yesterday, we awoke to the blaring of sirens that signalled the start of the assault. From then, the atmosphere was filled with anxiety and a deep sense of foreboding.

This is not an unprecedented aggression or experience, as I am reminded of the last invasion of this scale which I also witnessed, and all the memories come flooding back. When those rockets fell, I remember the feeling when explosions shattered the windows of my house. As a Palestinian living under Israeli aggression, we are forced into a continuous cycle of grief and trauma.

Read Mustafa Sheta’s full account here:

Thousands of people were evacuated from the Jenin refugee camp as one of Israel’s biggest West Bank military operations in years continued for a second day on Tuesday and a car-ramming in Tel Aviv underlined the risk of violence spreading.

The densely populated refugee camp, where some 14,000 people live in less than half a square kilometre, has been one of the focal points of a wave of violence that has swept the West Bank for more than a year, drawing growing international alarm.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had evacuated 500 families from the camp, or around 3,000 people, and UN agencies expressed alarm at the scale of the air and ground operation.

Trucks brought food, water and other supplies collected by volunteers in the nearby city of Nablus to Jenin where they were distributed at hospitals and social centres to those displaced by the fighting.

Jihad Hassan, 63, who fled the camp with his family after his son was wounded, said the drone strike had prompted him to leave.

“You don’t hear a sound, you just see the explosion,” he said, as he waited with his son at the Jenin Government Hospital. “It is something, when a person is forced to leave their home,” he said.

Echoing Palestinian emergency services, the World Health Organization said first responders had been prevented from entering the camp to reach wounded people. An Israeli military spokesman said there had been no such order.

“Ambulances have a free pass and we are also coordinating the entry of ambulances,” he told reporters late on Monday.

Watch live as Palestinians gather in protest along the Israel-Gaza border fence against the Israeli army raid in Jenin.

Witnesses to the Tel Aviv car-ramming attack which injured eight people have described their horror.

CCTV footage circulated online showed a pickup truck mounting a pavement and bicycle lane outside a mall at high speed, striking at least two people. The driver is seen exiting through a window, stabbing a cafe-goer and chasing other people with knife in hand.

“I saw the grey pickup pull up at peak speed and ram the bus stop, powerfully. In the first seconds you think it could have been a mistake by the driver,” said Liron Bahash, a sports teacher who was at the scene on a lunch break.

“He exited through the window, not the door, like in a movie, with a knife in hand and started chasing civilians. Now you understand it’s an attack. We ran for our lives,” Bahash told Reuters.