Concrete slabs and piles of sheet metal lay along roads in Jenin on Saturday as residents assessed the damage from Israel’s latest attack on the West Bank while explosions continued.
Signs of the ongoing conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory, which began on Wednesday as part of what Israel describes as a counter-terrorism campaign, were visible everywhere: collapsed walls, uprooted trees, tiled roofs lying on piles of rubble.
Residents of a neighbourhood in eastern Jenin told AFP that on the first day of the raid, bulldozers moved rapidly through the streets, tearing up asphalt and drilling into underground pipes to clear a path for Israeli troops.
Three days later, as fighting continued elsewhere in the city, “we are cut off from the world,” said Tahir al-Saadi.
“The water supply has stopped. The electricity supply has stopped, the sewage system is no longer working. All the infrastructure has been destroyed, we no longer have any services available.”
“The bakery has come to a standstill. We are not able to find milk for the children,” he said.
Israeli raids are not uncommon in Jenin, where the refugee camp is a stronghold of armed groups fighting Israel.
But the operation launched on Wednesday was unusually large and lengthy, targeting several West Bank towns simultaneously, and in Jenin itself there appeared to be no let-up.
“I think this is the worst day since the start of the raids,” Wissam Bakr, director of the Jenin government hospital, said on Saturday.
“We hear reports of clashes from time to time and sometimes there are heavy bombings.”
‘Dark days’
Local residents say an 82-year-old man was shot dead by an Israeli sniper on Friday a short distance from Faiza Abu Ja’far’s home, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in the operation so far to 20.
Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of the dead were members of their armed groups.
As Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers moved through the area near his home on Saturday morning, heading toward the refugee camp in Jenin, Abu Ja’afar said he and his relatives were still in shock.
“It’s very hard, for the kids and everybody. We’re scared, we’re scared, look at all the damage,” she said, standing amid a pile of rubble.
“We are living in dark days.”
It is still unclear just how dark it is, as Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rab told AFP that even he does not know exactly what is happening inside the camp, where the latest fighting appears to be concentrated.
“The Israelis are besieging hospitals and cutting off the city from the refugee camp, which has become a military zone that is inaccessible,” he said.
“Neither the civil defence, nor the ambulance, nor the journalists can go there and see what is happening there.”
The Israeli military has denied blocking access to hospitals, saying it has deployed its forces to prevent militants from gathering at hospitals, while ambulances are allowed to move.
Violence has escalated in the West Bank since Hamas’ unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered a war in the Gaza Strip.
At least 637 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the Gaza war began, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed during Palestinian attacks or military operations during the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said the number of forces involved in the current raid, which began on Wednesday, was smaller than those involved in a large-scale raid in July 2023, in which 13 people were killed.
Still, Jenin governor Abu al-Rab said the latest operation reminded him of the infamous 2002 battle in Jenin, which left dozens of Palestinians and Israelis dead.
Earlier this week, Shoshani categorically rejected the comparison, saying the operation underway in the West Bank was not “very different” from regular activity.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
