Israel launches biggest military operation in West Bank since 2002!

JENIN, West Bank (PNN) - July 3, 2023 - Israel has launched a major aerial and ground offensive into the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, its biggest military operation in the Palestinian territory in years, in what it described as an “extensive counter-terrorism effort”.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and 50 injured, 10 seriously, in the attack that began at about 1:00 am on Monday, and the death toll is likely to rise, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

On Monday afternoon, Israeli sources suggested they would need at least another 24 hours to complete the operation.

Launching at least 10 drone strikes on buildings, a brigade of Israeli troops - suggesting between 1,000 and 2,000 soldiers - backed by armored bulldozers and snipers on rooftops entered the city and its refugee camp, encountering fire from Palestinians, after Israel informed the White House of its plans.

The streets of Jenin were deserted on Monday except for crowds of people outside the nearest hospital, watching the gun battles at the main entrance to the camp at the end of the street. Black smoke from burning tires and tear gas filled the air. Ambulances struggled to cross impromptu Israeli checkpoints.

As explosions echoed around the city, calls to support the fighters rang out from loudspeakers in mosques.

The White House said it defended Israel’s right to security and was monitoring the situation on the West Bank closely. “We have seen the reports and are monitoring the situation closely,” a White House spokesman said. “We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups.”

A spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called the operation “a new war crime against our defenseless people”, while the Gaza-based militant group Hamas called on young men in the West Bank to join the fighting.

In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the domestic intelligence service, Shin Bet, said they had attacked a command center in the Jenin refugee camp that was used by a local militant group.

Images from inside Jenin showed armed and masked Palestinian fighters on the streets as gun battles and explosions continued into Monday morning.

At a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, the sound of increasingly heavy gun battles and aircraft overhead could be heard as the day wore on.

In an escalation of the violence, Israel carried out an airstrike near a mosque in the city that it said was being used by Palestinian gunmen to target Israeli forces. “Exchanges of fire are taking place with gunmen adjacent to a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp,” the IDF said. “An IDF aircraft struck to remove the threat.”

The joint aerial and ground incursion into the camp is the first since the 2002 battle of Jenin during the second intifada, when more than 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in over a week of fighting, including 13 Israeli soldiers in a single incident.