Deadly Israeli raid in Jenin leads to mass displacement, destruction

Israeli forces continue operation in occupied West Bank city, a day after 10 Palestinians were killed.

Israeli forces have continued their deadly raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, destroying infrastructure and forcing the displacement of about 2,000 families.

The operations on Wednesday included bulldozing key streets and come a day after ground and air attacks killed at least 10 people across Jenin governorate.

Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying the situation in Jenin was “very difficult”.

“The occupation army has bulldozed all the roads leading to the Jenin [refugee] camp and Jenin Government Hospital. … There is shooting and explosions,” he added.

According to al-Rub, Israeli forces also detained about 20 people from villages near Jenin.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that it carried out aerial attacks on “terror infrastructure sites”, adding that “numerous explosives planted on the routes” were “dismantled”.

“The Israeli forces are continuing the operation,” it added.

Adel Besher, a Jenin resident, told Al Jazeera he had to spend the night in a hospital courtyard because he was unable to reach home during the Israeli operations.

“Even though my house is 200 metres [220 yards] from here, I couldn’t reach it. There are many injured people, among them doctors, nurses and patients,” he said.

“There were also three or four people injured near my house, and no one was able to rescue them. Israeli forces shot at whoever got near them. Two were injured while trying to rescue them.”

The operation in Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions in recent years, comes days after a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank.

Before the Israeli action, the Palestinian Authority’s security forces carried out a weeks-long operation to reassert control of the city of Jenin as well as its refugee camp.

Last week, an Israeli air raid on the refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded many more.

The West Bank director of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said Jenin camp was “nearly uninhabitable”.

“Some 2,000 families displaced since mid-December. UNRWA has been unable to provide full services to the camp in this time,” Roland Friedrich said on X.

UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese condemned what she called Israel’s “death machinery” and its attacks on Jenin.

“If it is not forced to stop, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians will not be confined to Gaza. Mark my words,” she said on X.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military’s security plan in the West Bank and was “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza”.

“We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of (Israeli) settlers (in the West Bank) and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel,” he said in a statement.

Raids elsewhere

Israeli forces also stormed the town of Deir Sammit, west of Hebron, raiding homes of prisoners scheduled to be released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

The military also stormed the Aida camp in Bethlehem in the south, launching a wide-scale arrest campaign.

Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that Israeli forces tightened security for the third consecutive day at most entrances and exits of the governorates in the West Bank.

Videos shared by Palestinians and verified by Al Jazeera showed dozens of vehicles stuck in traffic at the Atara checkpoint near Ramallah due to heightened security.

Israeli raids in the West Bank have escalated since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Nearly 900 people have been killed there and more than 9,700 arrested, according to local rights groups and health officials.

Original article

Israeli offensive on occupied West Bank forcibly displaced 40,000: UN

The UN says 44 deaths in the occupied West Bank since January were linked to operations in Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.

11 February 2025

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has said the forced displacement of Palestinians in the northern area of the occupied West Bank is escalating at an alarming rate, with the number of people evacuating reaching 40,000 since January.

The UNRWA warning came as Israeli forces continued with their massive raids on Tuesday, storming Jenin and arresting three people, while demolishing more than a dozen houses in two areas near the city of Hebron.

Since the start of an Israeli operation on January 21, targeting the Jenin refugee camp and its adjoining city, the raids have expanded to other areas of the occupied territory, UNRWA said.

It said several refugee camps, including Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Far’a, have been “nearly emptied of their residents”, describing the nearly three-week military operation as “the single longest in the West Bank” since the second Intifada.

According to UNRWA, the four camps were collectively home to some 76,600 Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA said the “repeated and destructive operations” carried out by Israeli forces “have rendered the northern refugee camps uninhabitable, trapping residents in cyclical displacement”.

“In 2024, more than 60 percent of displacement was a result of” Israeli forces’ operations, “absent any judicial orders”, it added.

In 2025 so far, UNRWA noted, Israel has carried out 38 air raids targeting the West Bank.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a US-based crisis monitoring group, the operation in the West Bank has killed nearly 70 people and at least 44 of the deaths were linked to the Israeli operations in Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas. These numbers are supported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

UNRWA reiterated its call on Israelis to protect civilians and civilian infrastructures “at all times”, adding that “collective punishment is never acceptable”.

Since 30 January, UNRWA no longer has any contact with the Israeli authorities, after their ban took effect, making it impossible to raise concerns about civilian suffering in the Palestinian territory, the agency noted.

“This puts at grave risk the lives of Palestine refugees and the UNRWA staff that serve them,” it said.

Source: Al Jazeera a

Original article

Photo: Palestinians walk along a damaged road near the main entrance to the Jenin refugee camp during the ongoing Israeli military operation in the northern area of the occupied West Bank, 5 February 2025. Source: Alaa Badarneh/EPA.

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