IDF general responsible for Jenin: Thousands of bullets were fired

The officer in charge of the Central Command area that includes Jenin, Maj-Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, tells Channel 12 news that “hundreds, even thousands of bullets” were fired by the IDF and by Palestinian gunmen in today’s gunbattle, and “I don’t know which bullet” hit Shireen Abu Akleh. “I am sorry for every innocent person who is hurt in the course of IDF operations. We do our best to avoid it,” he says. “And I’m sorry about the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.”

He presents himself as the officer responsible — in that “I am the Central Command general. I’m responsible for ensuring that terrorist attacks do not come out of Jenin. I’m responsible for sending combat troops, risking their lives, into Jenin refugee camp to extricate people who are planning terror attacks, people who have carried out attacks, and people who are making weaponry to harm Israelis.”

Entering Jenin is always dangerous, he says, since gunfire erupts from all directions. It’s not simple. It’s an urban area. And it’s dangerous.”

Asked about the concerted Palestinian campaign of blame against Israel, Fuchs says, “I don’t deal with [propaganda] campaigns. The only campaign I’m engaged in is to protect the state of Israel. In 99% of the operations against terror in urban areas, including in Jenin where we are fired on in all directions, we don’t hit innocents. We succeed at that.

“But sometimes… when you’re fighting in a refugee camp, and dozens of [gunmen] are coming at you and firing from 270 degrees, from almost all directions, sometimes innocent people do get harmed. The journalist Shireen, who was really very close to the line where the forces were — ours and the Palestinian terrorists — was hurt there.”