JENIN: A Palestinian official said hundreds of people began leaving their homes in a flashpoint area of the occupied West Bank on Thursday as Israeli forces pressed a deadly operation.
The Israeli military launched the raid in the Jenin area, a hotbed of Palestinian militancy, days into a ceasefire in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the objective of the operation, dubbed “Iron Wall”, is to “eradicate terrorism” in the area.
He linked the operation to a broader strategy of countering Iran “wherever it sends its arms — in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen” and the West Bank.
The Israeli government has accused Iran, which supports armed groups across the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza, of attempting to funnel weapons and funds to militants in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“Hundreds of camp residents have begun leaving after the Israeli army, using loudspeakers on drones and military vehicles, ordered them to evacuate the camp,“ Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP.
The Israeli army said it was “unaware of any evacuation orders for residents in Jenin as of now”.
Since it began on Tuesday, the operation has killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded 40 more, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
“There are dozens of camp residents who have begun to leave,“ Jenin resident Salim Saadi said.
“The army is in front of my house. They could enter at any moment.”
Israeli forces have also detained several Palestinians from the Jenin area, with an AFP photographer seeing a row of blindfolded men in white jumpsuits being transported out of the West Bank.
Drones
Palestinians had already begun fleeing the Jenin area on foot on Wednesday, with AFPTV images showing a group of men, women and children making their way down a muddy road, the sound of drones buzzing above them clearly audible.
The Israeli military said on Thursday it killed two Palestinian militants near Jenin during the night, accusing them of having killed three Israelis.
In a statement, the military said that Israeli troops found the two militants barricaded in a house in the village of Burqin.
“After an exchange of fire, they were eliminated by the forces,“ it said, adding one soldier was wounded in the gunfight.
The two men were wanted for the killing of three Israelis and the wounding of six others in a January 6 attack on a bus in the West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry later confirmed the two deaths.
Violence has surged across the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s attack on southern Israel.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 850 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began.
During the same period, at least 29 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the territory, according to Israeli official figures.
The Jenin raid began after a truce took effect in Gaza on Sunday, halting 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
The October 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 251 people hostage, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the military has said are dead.
The attack sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has killed more than 47,200 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Under the terms of the truce, Gaza militants handed over three Israeli women they had been holding since 2023, in exchange for the release of around 90 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
On Saturday, the two sides are due to carry out a second swap.
During first phase of the ceasefire, which is intended to last 42 days, Israeli forces are withdrawing from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
The ceasefire followed months of fruitless negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt.
