Israeli forces have besieged a Palestinian government hospital in Jenin and a nearby refugee camp in the center of the city, as Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the attack marked a “change in security strategy” in the West Bank. is
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that they carried out airstrikes in Jenin, as well as detonating roadside explosive devices. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that at least 10 people were killed and more than 40 injured in Jenin.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulances had been prevented from reaching the many dead and wounded lying in the streets of neighborhoods around the Jenin refugee camp.
Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman Nibal Farsakh said that no one can break the siege of the refugee camp and the surrounding area. He added that his doctors had treated seven dead and 17 wounded, all wounded by live ammunition.
The Israeli offensive on Jenin continued despite a recent cease-fire in Gaza, halting an Israeli offensive on the area that lasted 15 months after the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israeli towns and kibbutzim around Gaza.
After a cease-fire in Gaza took effect less than a week ago, Israeli forces have signaled a renewed military operation in the West Bank.
Wissam Bakr, head of the Khalil Sulaiman public hospital in Jenin, said: “The current situation is terrible. Israeli forces have destroyed the roads in front of the hospital. They put the debris of the destroyed streets in front of the exit of the hospital so that the ambulances can enter. can be prevented from happening or going.”
He estimated that 600 medical staff and patients were sheltering inside the hospital, huddling in fear to any bed, chair or space. The supply of food and water in the hospital will be limited for a few days. He said that an Israeli drone could be heard, which scared people in the hospital.
He added that two nurses and three doctors were shot on the main road leading to the hospital on Tuesday.
“So far the Israeli forces are out,” Booker said, sending a photo of an Israeli military bulldozer seen clearing some debris at the entrance to the hospital compound. As he was speaking, gunshots could be heard intermittently over the phone.
The increase in Jenin comes as Israeli forces close entry and exit points to Palestinian towns in the West Bank using checkpoints. On Wednesday morning, Israeli troops also attacked the Ada refugee camp, north of Bethlehem, and in Tulkarm. At least 29 people, mostly youths, were arrested in the West Bank on Wednesday morning, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
A committee within the Palestine Liberation Organization that monitors Israeli activities in the area has reported that the IDF has increased the number of military checkpoints and iron gates, reaching around 900. The IDF did not comment on the exact number of new checkpoints.
Speaking to Ramallah, Asil Baidoun, from Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “We have been facing an extensive military lockdown for two days. The Israeli army has set up hundreds of new checkpoints that are in towns and cities. Making movement between cities almost impossible, people have reported delays at checkpoints of between six and eight hours.
“People are stuck in their towns and cities, unable to go to work,” he said. “It’s an open-air prison; we feel like we can’t move around. If you want to go from Ramallah to Jericho, it’s impossible, and it’s almost impossible to reach the nearby villages. Not only are there restrictions on movement. There are also crazy attacks by settlers.
An IDF spokesman, Lt. Col. Nidav Shoshani, called the military operations in the West Bank “correct operations to target and fight terrorists while enabling civilians to walk with their lives.”
Despite Jenin’s mayor, Mohamed Jarrar, telling Wafa that Israeli forces had used loudspeakers to tell people in some Jenin neighborhoods to evacuate, Shoshani dismissed any reports of forced evacuations as “fake news.” gave
Shoshani said: “We have to learn from October 7, and not allow terrorist groups to regroup and arm themselves, and plan attacks a few hundred meters away from us.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smutrich said: “After Gaza and Lebanon, today, with God’s help, we have begun to change the concept of security in Judea and Samaria and to end terrorism in the region. In the Campaign for Abolition”. Using the biblical name by which the Israelites refer to the West Bank.
But Yagel Levi, an analyst of civil-military relations at Israel’s Open University, said: “There is no practical justification for action in the West Bank.”
He said that a recent operation by the Palestinian Authority to target Hamas in Jenin, while controversial for its perceived support of Israeli causes in the area, showed that the Authority was both in Jenin and Gaza. I have the ability to maintain control.
Levy said Israel’s decision to launch a military operation in Jenin was aimed at weakening the Palestinian Authority and its possible return to Gaza, destabilizing the West Bank and continuing its covert annexation of the area, and “Smotrich and to please his party”.
Smutrich said, “demanded that the fighting in the West Bank be included in Israel’s war objectives in Gaza. In return, he accepted the first phase of the hostage deal and refrained from toppling the government.”
The United Nations Office for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OHCHR) said: “Public statements by Israeli military officials express concern about Israel’s plans to escalate operations in the occupied West Bank.”
The Israeli assault on Jenin has also been accompanied by an increase in settler violence in the West Bank, amid indications that settlers are targeting villages where Palestinian prisoners are being held as part of a cease-fire agreement and hostage swaps. was done
Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles and property in villages around Qalqilya in the northwestern West Bank, as well as in Tarmis Aya near Ramallah.
As a result of Israeli settlers’ attacks, more than 21 Palestinians, including three children, have been injured in the occupied West Bank.
