A hit-and-run attack injured eight people in Tel Aviv, with the perpetrator shot dead on the spot. On the eve of the start of the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank since 2006, using helicopters, drones, armored vehicles and excavators, which left 11 dead, groups such as Islamic Jihad vowed to “hit the enemy” “. At the end of the second day of the military raid, Tel Aviv announced the beginning of the withdrawal, while there were new clashes and firefights outside Khalil Suleiman Hospital, in the refugee camp.
“The heroic attack in Tel Aviv is the first response to the occupation’s crimes against our people in Jenin,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said of the terrorist attack at a bus stop in the Israeli capital. Tel Aviv Police Chief Ami Eshed said the attacker was a Palestinian in his 20s from the Hebron region of the West Bank, who acted alone.
An airstrike on a cemetery in Jenin killed one man, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, marking the twelfth fatality since the beginning of the Israeli strike that Tel Aviv said was aimed at targeting terrorist infrastructure in that city and in the adjacent refugee camp.
At the end of the afternoon, the Israeli Prime Minister announced that “the mission” was completed and warned that it was not an isolated action. “We will continue to eradicate terrorism as long as necessary, we will not allow Jenin to become a haven for terrorism,” Benjamin Netanyahu said while visiting a checkpoint near Salem in the West Bank.
On his side, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant gave more details about the operation, saying that “thousands of bombs, large and small, had been seized and dozens of factories, workshops and laboratories had been destroyed”. For Gallant, “Jenin has become a terror factory in the last two years. Now that’s over,” he assured.
The operation aimed to locate 150 suspects and was expected to face about 300 combatants, the Israeli army spokesman said. However, about half of the suspects were not located, having managed to hide or escape among the approximately 3,000 civilians who had fled the attacks.
While the military commented to the press was surprised by the lack of response from the Palestinian militants, Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fire near the local hospital late in the day, casting doubt on the timetable for the end of the operation. would be affected. .
UN criticism
For the second consecutive day, the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, responded. “The recent operation in the occupied West Bank and the car attack in Tel Aviv disturbingly underline an all too familiar pattern of events: Violence only leads to more violence. The killing, maiming and destruction of property must stop,” he said. he said in a statement. reported the Austrian.
The day before, Türk questioned the use of heavy military assets, “weapons usually associated with the conduct of armed hostilities rather than law enforcement,” and said Israel “urgently needs to redefine its policies and actions in the West Bank in accordance with international human rights standards”.
In response to the Israeli military operation, the Palestinian Authority has suspended contacts and meetings with Tel Aviv and suspended security coordination between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian leaders also decided to limit their relations with the United States because of what they see as Washington’s inability to put pressure on Israel.
Jenin, symbol of resistance
Established in 1953, the Jenin Refugee Camp is home to approximately 18,000 residents who are part of the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, an event Palestinians call nakba (“catastrophe”). Located in the north of the occupied West Bank, it covers an area of 0.43 km2, according to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA). Over time, the stalls were replaced by houses and the site now looks more like a neighborhood in the city of Jenin.
One of the best-known figures in this field is Zakaria Zubeidi, former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party. Zubeidi has long been on Israel’s most wanted list, as he was responsible for numerous attacks against Israeli civilians. The 2021 escape from Israel’s Gilboa Prison, where he had been held since 2019 for “terrorism”, and the ensuing multi-day search earned him a reputation as a hero among Palestinians. In 2022, Raad Hazem, another camp resident, killed three Israelis during a shootout in a Tel Aviv neighborhood and was shot. Photos of them and other “martyrs” killed by Israeli soldiers have been pasted on camp walls and at street entrances.
In 2002, Israel besieged Jenin for more than a month during a military operation in the West Bank. The fighting killed 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers. More than 400 homes were destroyed and more than a quarter of the population was displaced, according to UNRWA.
Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known journalist from the Al Jazeera television network, was covering an Israeli attack on that camp when she was shot dead on May 11, 2022. The journalist was wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest with the word Press on it. ) stamped. After the Israeli government initially claimed that Abu Akleh had been mistaken by Palestinian militants for one of its soldiers, footage and testimony showed that he was the victim of Israeli bullets – and that he had no one with him. A year later, Tel Aviv apologized for the deaths of the Palestinian and American citizen.
Israel claims there have been at least 50 gun attacks from Jenin and the surrounding area since the beginning of the year. These deadly attacks on Israeli targets led the army to launch several raids on the refugee camp, where the presence of the Palestinian Authority is scarce. Israel claims that the “Jenin Brigade”, a local armed group accused of the attacks, has the support of Iran and that its members include militants from the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, as well as from Islamic Jihad and the Fatah.
With AFP
Source: DN
