Israeli troops to remain in Jenin refugee camp, defence minister says
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Israeli forces stopping a Palestinian ambulance on Jan 29, during the ninth day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
JENIN, West Bank/JERUSALEM - Israeli troops will remain in the Palestinians’ Jenin refugee camp once the large-scale raid they launched last week is complete, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Jan 29 as a crackdown in the occupied West Bank extended into a second week.
Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by helicopters, drones and armoured vehicles have been fighting sporadic gun battles with Palestinian militants while carrying out searches in the streets and alleyways for weapons and equipment.
“The Jenin refugee camp will not be what it was,” Mr Katz said, during a visit to the camp.
“After the operation is completed, the Israel Defence Forces will remain in the camp to ensure that terrorism does not return.”
He did not give details and a military spokesperson declined to comment.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned what it called Mr Katz’s “provocative” statement and called for international pressure on Israel to stop the operation, which has already been condemned by countries including France and Jordan.
Israeli forces went into Jenin immediately after the start of a six-week ceasefire in Gaza, saying it aimed to hit militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which receive support from Iran.
Israel regards the West Bank as one part of a multi-front war against Iranian-backed groups established around its borders, from Gaza to Lebanon and including the Houthis in Yemen, and it turned its attention to the area immediately after the halt to fighting in Gaza.
At least 17 Palestinians, including six members of armed militant groups and a two-year-old girl, have been killed in Jenin and the surrounding villages during the operation, according to Palestinian officials.
The military said forces had killed at least 18 militants and detained 60 wanted individuals, dismantling over 100 explosive devices and seizing a weapons manufacturing workshop.
A spokesperson said an investigation into the death of the girl is still ongoing.
Within the camp, dozens of houses have been demolished and roads have been dug up by special armoured bulldozers, driving thousands of people from their homes.
Water has been cut and Palestinian officials say at least 80 per cent of the camp's inhabitants have been forced to leave their homes.
Palestinians walking past Israeli forces during the ninth day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, on Jan 29.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
“It’s terrifying, the explosions the fires, the houses which were demolished,” said Ms Intisar Amalka, a displaced camp resident who said her nephew’s car had been destroyed by an Israeli bulldozer.
Army roadblocks
The Jenin refugee camp, a crowded township built for descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out in the 1948 Middle East war around the creation of the state of Israel, has been a centre of militant activity for decades and the target of repeated raids by Israeli troops.
Just prior to the latest raid, security forces of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governance in parts of the West Bank, conducted a weeks-long operation of its own in a bid to reassert control in Jenin.
As the fighting in Gaza has subsided, at least for the moment, Israeli forces have stepped up operations across the area, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks which have made travelling even short distances between towns and villages an hours-long trial for Palestinians.
Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces have been carrying out an operation in Tulkarm, another volatile city where they have clashed repeatedly with militants recently, moving into the city itself as well as into its refugee camp.
An Israeli soldier taking up a position in the West Bank city of Jenin, on Jan 29.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The West Bank, a kidney-shaped stretch of land about 100km long, was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and is seen by Palestinians as the core of a future independent state, along with Gaza.
It has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, many of them armed gunmen but also including stone-throwing youth or uninvolved civilians, and thousands have been arrested.
Palestinian attacks in the West Bank and Israel have also killed dozens of Israelis. REUTERS
