Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin City and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank after nine days of major operations there.
The area, a militant stronghold with a civilian population of around 60,000, was the target of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) largest operation in the West Bank in years, which the IDF described as a counterterrorism operation.
At least 36 Palestinians were killed, 21 of them from Jenin governorate, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Most of the dead were believed to be members of militant groups, but the Ministry of Health said the victims included children.
An Israeli soldier was also killed during the fighting in Jenin.
The city of Tubas and Al-Fara’a refugee camp were also attacked during operations in the northern West Bank. It is the deadliest operation since the start of the war in Gaza, which began with Hamas attacks on Israel last October.
Hundreds of soldiers from multiple branches of the security forces participated, and civilians were confined to their homes and public services were cut off while Israeli troops battled militants on the ground with airstrikes.
Residents of a camp in the west of Jenin City came out onto the streets for the first time since the IDF began its offensive on August 27.
Many were stunned, exhausted, and slow to assess the damage, seeing a new layer of destruction the operation had brought to the camp.
Khalid Abu Sabir lives in an underground apartment next to the mosque. He said an entire floor of his house was blown away by the powerful explosion.
He said the Israeli army was interested in a cave beneath the building, an empty space that had been there for decades.
The IDF asked him to leave before it and his house were blown up. Years of violent conflict between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants are marked in Jenin’s narrow streets. Walls are dotted with bullet holes, piles of rubble left by army bulldozers, graffiti in the shape of an M16 rifle, and the name “Hamas” carved into them.
Holes ripped through the ruined city’s centre, and the main road collapsed and is impassable.
Construction vehicles dig whole tree trunks out of the destroyed road and carry them away. Shopkeepers and photojournalists clamber over the rubble to assess the damage.
On both sides, residents stop to watch the rebuilding work, taking to the streets on foot, on scooters, and by bicycle for the first time in more than nine days.
Wissam Bakr, director of Jenin’s public hospital, also at the scene, says the first four days of the Israeli operation were the hospital’s toughest, with power and water supplies cut off.
With two newborns and two elderly patients on ventilators, he says they are relying on generators and water tanks.
Further down the road, the hustle and bustle of the city has returned. At the edge of the market, stallholders peddle carts loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables. Surrounding cafes are packed with men and boys of several generations.
Gunfire rang out again in the refugee camp on Friday morning as numerous funerals began. At least eight of the dead were civilians, including a 16-year-old girl, according to the BBC.
The IDF said in a statement that during the operation in the Jenin area, “14 terrorists were eliminated, more than 30 suspects were arrested, and about 30 explosives planted under the road were defused.”
The ministry also said it had dismantled “numerous terrorist infrastructure facilities, including a weapons storage facility under a mosque and a laboratory used to manufacture explosives,” and removed “a large amount of weapons.”
Three Palestinians have been killed in the southern Hebron governorate in the past nine days, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
One of them carried out a shooting that killed three Israeli police officers on Sunday in the Tarkmiya neighborhood, according to the Israeli army.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas offensive and subsequent war in Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli forces have stepped up raids, killing more than 600 Palestinians. Israel says it is trying to stop deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and inside Israel.
