From the Liveblog of
Friday, September 6, 2024
Palestinian media reports IDF has withdrawn from Jenin after 10-day operation
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Israel Defense Force troops have withdrawn from the West Bank city of Jenin following a 10-day operation, the longest raid carried out by the military in the West Bank in history, Palestinian media reports.
The Palestinian Authority’s official Wafa news agency says the troops pulled out of the city at dawn.
Twenty-one Palestinians were killed over the course of the operation, the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry says in a statement.
Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp — where army bulldozers destroyed infrastructure — have long been strongholds of Palestinian terror groups.
The IDF has been carrying out a major operation in the northern West Bank since August 28. The operation — internally dubbed “Summer Camps” by the army — began with simultaneous raids on Jenin, Tulkarem and the Far’a camp near Tubas, with the goal of dismantling Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror networks in the three areas of the northern West Bank.
So far, according to the IDF, more than 30 gunmen have been killed in the operation, among them the head of Hamas in Jenin and the head of Islamic Jihad in the Tulkarem area.
Violence in the West Bank has surged in the past year, following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 were taken hostage.
Since that date, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,000 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 29 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Emanuel Fabian and Reuters contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.