Thousands flee Jenin as Israel indicates terror crackdown will continue

IDF denies reports it ordered evacuation of West Bank city, as Palestinians stream out of refugee camp and Israeli reinforcements move in

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

  • Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with an operation in the area, in the West Bank Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
    Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with an operation in the area, in the West Bank Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
  • Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a counter-terrorism operation in the area. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
    Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a counter-terrorism operation in the area. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
  • Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a counter-terrorism operation in the area, July 3, 2023. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
    Residents of the Jenin refugee camp evacuate their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a counter-terrorism operation in the area, July 3, 2023. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
  • Palestinians clash with Israeli forces during a military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on July 3, 2023.(Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP)
    Palestinians clash with Israeli forces during a military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on July 3, 2023.(Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP)
  • Israeli army deploys tear gas during a major counter-terror operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, July 3, 2023.  (Flash90)
    Israeli army deploys tear gas during a major counter-terror operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, July 3, 2023. (Flash90)
  • Israeli military armored vehicles advance on a road during an operation in Jenin, July 3, 2023. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP)
    Israeli military armored vehicles advance on a road during an operation in Jenin, July 3, 2023. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP)
  • A Palestinian throws a stone at an armored IDF vehicle during a military operation in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, July 3, 2023. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/ AFP)
    A Palestinian throws a stone at an armored IDF vehicle during a military operation in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, July 3, 2023. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/ AFP)
  • Smoke rises during an Israeli military raid in Jenin on Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
    Smoke rises during an Israeli military raid in Jenin on Monday, July 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Thousands of Palestinians streamed out of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Monday night to escape fighting as Israeli forces pushed ahead with a major anti-terror operation.

The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency services group said 3,000 people had been evacuated from the densely populated quarter of the city.

“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub told AFP, adding that arrangements were being made to house them in schools and other shelters in the city of Jenin. He said about 18,000 Palestinians reside in the camp.

Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, confirmed to AFP that residents of the camp were leaving.

Footage released by Palestinian media showed crowds walking out of Jenin, some moving past Israeli military vehicles.

Palestinian media reports also said the military was deploying reinforcements to Jenin. In footage shared online, a large convoy of army vehicles, including bulldozers, were seen entering the area Monday evening.

Israeli officials denied ordering an evacuation after Palestinian media said the IDF had instructed residents to leave the area. The IDF’s Arabic language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said the evacuation reports were “baseless.”

Defense officials told the Ynet news site that the Israel Defense Forces did not issue an evacuation order, and that the Jenin residents were fleeing to escape the fighting. Hundreds of armed terrorists were holed up in the refugee camp, the officials said, stoking fears among residents they could be caught in the crossfire.

Israel launched the major operation early Monday to crack down on what it says is a hotbed of terror in the city. A number of attacks on Israelis in recent years have been carried out by Palestinians from the area, and observers say the Palestinian Authority has little control on the ground.

Over 1,000 IDF troops were involved in the campaign, which appeared to be the largest in the West Bank in some 20 years. Officials quoted in Hebrew-language media predicted the campaign would continue into Monday night, but likely be over within a a short time.

The IDF said the operation began shortly after 1 a.m. on Monday, with a series of airstrikes against multiple targets in the city, including a joint war room shared by various armed groups in the city.

Throughout the operation on Monday, IDF troops searched for weapon storage sites, explosives labs, and other “terror infrastructure”; clashed with armed Palestinians; and carried out airstrikes against various targets in the refugee camp, the IDF said in a statement.

Smoke rises during an Israeli military raid in Jenin on July 3, 2023. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian health officials said early Tuesday morning that nine people were killed and at least 100 others were wounded, including 20 listed in serious condition, during the strikes and in clashes with Israeli forces, which continued into the night.

Several of the slain Palestinians were identified by media reports as members of armed groups in the city, although there was no immediate official statement issued by Islamic Jihad or other local terror organizations.

Operation to continue

Israeli political and security leaders are in agreement to continue with the counter-terror operation, the Kan public broadcaster reported earlier Monday.

“There are still many goals that Israel wants to achieve,” a security official told the network, adding that messages were being sent to Gaza and Lebanon, warning terror groups to stay out of the fighting.

The major military operation will not be a one-off raid, a top general said Monday.

“This operation doesn’t stand on its own. This day doesn’t stand on its own,” the chief of the military’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, told reporters at the Salem checkpoint, some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Jenin.

Chief of the IDF Central Command Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox speaks to reporters at the Salem checkpoint in the northern West Bank, July 3, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

“There is a series of operations here, just like we were here a week ago and two weeks ago. We will finish this operation, and we will come back in a few days or a week, and we will not abide [Jenin] being a city of refuge for terror,” Fox said.

“This isn’t a limited engagement. We want to improve the security and increase our freedom of action,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the heads of the IDF and Shin Bet Monday evening to discuss the operation. Netanyahu hailed the campaign as a game-changer against terror.

“In recent months, Jenin has become a haven for terrorism — we are putting an end to it,” Netanyahu said, noting that Israeli forces had killed several gunmen, arrested others, and found and destroyed a host of weapon and bomb-making facilities, some of them “on an industrial scale.”

Netanyahu pointed out that the forces were operating in a densely populated area and “they are doing it with minimal harm to civilians.”

The premier claimed that the operation would change “the equation against terrorism” and compared it to the recent operation against Islamic Jihad in Gaza in May and the May 2021 Guardian of the Walls operation against Gaza-based terrorists.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (second from right) attends a security briefing during an IDF operation in Jenin on July 3, 2023. At left is IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, and next to him is Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, is at center. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups urged Palestinians to join the fighting against the IDF, with some Gaza-based fighters threatening to get involved.

Preparing for possible rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, authorities canceled a large concert in the southern city of Sderot, but issued no other precautions. Over the past year, Islamic Jihad has launched rockets at Israel from Gaza in response to members being killed or arrested in the West Bank.

The IDF said that since the early hours of Monday, troops questioned over 100 Palestinian suspects. Several of them were released, while others were taken in for additional questioning.

The IDF said Border Police troops also shot a wanted Palestinian man during the operation. The suspect was taken by military forces to a hospital in Israel for treatment, before he was to be questioned.

One Israeli soldier was lightly hurt during the fighting, after being hit by shrapnel from a grenade hurled by other Israeli forces. The IDF said First Sgt. “Ayin,” from the elite Duvdevan unit — who can only be identified by his rank and initial of his first name in Hebrew — “insisted” on returning to his unit after being treated.

More than 300 explosive devices were seized and demolished by troops during the operation, and the military carried out some 20 drone strikes across the city and Jenin refugee camp, the IDF said.

The IDF also published footage showing members of the elite Maglan unit clashing with Palestinian gunmen in Jenin early on Monday morning.

‘Home and Garden’

Internally, the military has referred to the operation by name, calling it “Bayit Vegan,” literally Home and Garden, a reference to Jenin’s biblical name, a term used by Netanyahu as well. But the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit has insisted that the operation has no official name.

The military appeared to be downplaying the scale of the campaign by not giving it a name. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari called it a “brigade-level raid.”

For weeks, there was speculation about a major Israeli military operation in the West Bank, following a string of shooting attacks and intense resistance to IDF raids in Palestinian cities.

Palestinian gunmen take up positions during a confrontation with the Israeli army in the West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Last month, an Israeli military drone struck a car carrying three Palestinian gunmen who had just opened fire at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank near Jenin, marking the first targeted killings in the West Bank since 2006.

That incident came days after attack helicopters were used in a military raid in Jenin, in which seven Palestinians were killed, including two teens, and eight soldiers were injured by a large roadside bomb and in clashes with Palestinian gunmen.

Last week, Palestinians in the Jenin area attempted to launch two homemade rockets at Israeli towns, footage showed. The rockets landed in Palestinian-controlled territory in the northern West Bank and did not reach Israel. A makeshift rocket was located during Monday’s operation in Jenin.

The northern West Bank, and especially the city of Jenin and its environs, has long been considered by the IDF as a hotbed of terrorism, highlighted by a string of attacks in early 2022, many of which were carried out by residents of the area.

According to the IDF, since last year, some 50 shooting attacks were carried out by residents of the area, and 19 wanted Palestinians escaped to Jenin to seek refuge there from Israeli forces.

Israeli troops operate in the West Bank city of Jenin, July 3, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been high across the West Bank for the past year and a half, with the military carrying out near-nightly raids, amid a series of deadly Palestinian terror attacks.

Since the beginning of this year, Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have killed 24 people.

According to a tally by The Times of Israel, 144 West Bank Palestinians have been killed during that time — most of them during clashes with security forces or while carrying out attacks, but some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under unclear circumstances.

AFP contributed to this report.

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