The UN warned on Monday of the “dangerous escalation” of tensions in the occupied West Bank and called for the protection of the civilian population, hours after a new Israeli military operation in Jenin, which left eight dead and more than 50 injured.
“The operation [militar israelita] comes after months of escalating tensions that remind us, once again, that the situation is extremely volatile and unpredictable in the occupied West Bank,” said the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, in a series of messages on the personal pageaccount of the social network Twitter.
Wennesland confirmed contacts with all parties and explained that he had asked all of them to “urgently” ease tensions and guarantee humanitarian access and medical assistance in Jenin, where Israeli forces even launched shelling to combat the presence of terrorist groups.
The Government of Israel justified the “high intensity” attack on Jenin by considering the Palestinian city in the north of the occupied West Bank as “a center of terrorism.”
The argument was used by the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, as a justification for the vast operation against the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin that the Israeli army is carrying out.
Terror attacks against Israeli civilians have been instigated in the Jenin camp, Cohen told reporters.
An Israeli army statement said a “soldier was slightly injured by shrapnel from an army grenade during the Jenin operation and was hospitalized.”
The Israeli offensive, which began by air and continued on the ground, gave priority to a command center of the Jenin Brigade, which brings together all the militias of all factions to fight Israeli troops together, also used as an observation center , coordination and planning. , stockpiling weapons and explosives, and hiding other militants involved in the attacks in recent months.
“As part of a broader anti-terrorism effort in Judea and Samaria [Cisjordânia]security forces attacked an operations center, which served as the joint operational command center of the Jenin Brigade in the Jenin refugee camp,” an Israeli army spokesman said early Monday morning.
For its part, the non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that several health centers in Jenin were damaged.
“The statements by the Israeli forces that they are only attacking the military infrastructure contrast with what we see: the hospital where we are treating patients was hit by tear gas,” said MSF coordinator Jovana Arsenijevic.
The organization, which criticized that Israeli offensives are “increasingly frequent”, said that the roads that connect to the refugee camp are blocked, even for ambulances.
Source: TSF
