Israel & Palestine

Israel launches raids in West Bank with mass arrests, gun battles; 9 killed

Author: John Hudson, Loveday Morris, Frances Vinall, Claire Parker and Hazem Balousha Source: The Washington Post

August 28, 2024 at 09:35

Israel’s military and internal security service said the operation was aimed at infrastructure used by militants in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm.

TEL AVIV — Israeli troops launched raids in several areas of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, carrying out mass arrests, engaging in gun battles and killing at least nine Palestinians in a large-scale operation backed by air support.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement security forces had begun counterterrorism operations overnight in the areas of Jenin, Tulkarm and al-Fara’a refugee camp near Tubas, confiscating what it said were “large quantities” of weapons. It said the operation was carried out in coordination with Israel Border Police forces and the Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service.

“We are operating to thwart terror,” said an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, who said troops had encountered explosive devices and were engaging in “real-time fire exchanges.” He said the operation still in its “first phases."Eyewitnesses described drones scanning the skies and armored personnel carriers on the streets as the IDF surrounded hospitals and set up checkpoints, and went house to house making arrests.

At least nine Palestinians have been killed since midnight, the Health Ministry in Ramallah said. Seven were taken to a hospital in Tubas and two to a hospital in Jenin, it said. The IDF said that all nine were militants. The Jenin Battalion, a Palestinian militant group, said six of its members were killed, though it was not immediately clear whether those casualties were included in the count announced by authorities.Israel has said it has seen a spike in attacks emanating from the West Bank, especially the northern areas, in recent months, accusing Iran of stoking militancy there in an attempt to turn it into a new front in the war against Palestinian militants in Gaza. Some 150 militant attacks originated in the area of the raids in the past year, Shoshani said.

Hamas claimed responsibility for an attempted bombing attack in Tel Aviv this month, saying it will carry out similar operations for as long as the war in Gaza continues.

Israeli soldiers conduct a raid on the al-Fara'a camp near Tubas on Wednesday. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

Over the course of the war, Israel has stepped up its raids in the West Bank, fueling discontentment among communities where settler violence has also surged. Since Oct. 7, at least 607 Palestinians and 15 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh described the raids as “a continuation of the comprehensive war on the Palestinian people, our land and our holy sites.” He called on the United States to intervene. “The world must take immediate and urgent action to curb this extremist government,” he said.

In a statement Wednesday, Hamas called for its followers to “escalate all forms of resistance and confront the occupation and its settlers everywhere in our occupied land.”

In Jenin, the IDF said it had killed three “armed terrorists” in an airstrike, and another two fighters in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarm. It said that four other armed militants that posed a threat to troops were killed in a strike on a car in the area of al-Fara’a camp.

The Jenin Battalion said four of its members were killed in an Israeli strike on a car in Sir, 11 miles south of Jenin, and two were killed during the Israeli operation in the Jenin camp.In a statement, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Israel would address the threats in the West Bank “with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza.” He said that included “temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents” and any “necessary measures.”

“This is a war, and we must win it,” he said.

The Ministry of Health in Ramallah called on international organizations to stop what it described as “threats to storm” hospitals in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas. Mahmoud al-Saadi, director of the Palestine Red Crescent Society branch in Jenin, said that Israeli army vehicles had surrounded the roads to local hospitals and set up checkpoints, slowing down the organization’s ambulances, which could only pass with coordination.

“For our staff, this is heavy work today because of the checkpoints, because of the snipers and all the roads are surrounded by Israeli vehicles,” he said. Ibn Sina Hospital, a private hospital in Jenin, has been entirely surrounded by Israeli forces, he said, adding that PRCS ambulances had been able to transport two wounded patients to the government hospital since the raid began. One was shot in the chest and another was hit by shrapnel, he said.Shoshani said that Israeli troops had surrounded hospitals to prevent them from becoming a combat zone. “We’ve seen in recent times terrorists run to hospitals when they see our forces entering the cities,” he said.

Masoud Ammar, a 58-year-old lawyer who lives in Jenin, told The Washington Post “the sky is full of drones” and described seeing “a huge number of armored personnel carriers.”While Israeli officials described it as a necessary counterterrorism operation, Ammar questioned the need for such a powerful show of force. “Large numbers of soldiers armed to the teeth,” he said. “And all this, against whom?”

Entry to the city of Tulkarm was blocked off by Israeli forces, where operations focused on the Nur Shams refugee camp, according to local residents. “Tulkarm is under siege from all directions,” said Iyad Jarrad, the secretary general of Fatah movement in the area. He said residents had been asked to evacuate Nur Shams camp, home to around 8,000 people.

At al-Fara’a refugee camp, Asem Mansour, head of the popular committee that oversees camp services, said that the incursion that started there at 3 a.m. was the “largest and most extensive” in the camp’s history. Electricity had been cut to large parts of the camp and bulldozers had churned up the streets.

Here’s what else to know

Human Rights Watch urged Israeli officials to ensure a polio vaccination campaign can be carried out in Gaza, after the Strip recorded its first case in 25 years. “Humanitarians are racing to vaccinate ~ 640k kids,” HRW Executive Director Tirana Hassan said on X, blaming “Israeli authorities’ ongoing attacks on water, sanitation, & health” for the reemergence of the highly infectious, potentially fatal disease.

At least 40,534 people have been killed and 93,778 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 339 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.

Sufian Taha, Lior Soroka contributed to this report.