Minister says Israel taking ‘lessons’ from Gaza in West Bank operation | Israel-Palestine conflict news
Israel’s defense minister says the army is using Gaza war ‘methods’ in a major attack on Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military is applying methods learned during the war on Gaza to its ongoing “Iron Wall” military campaign in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s defense minister said, where troops killed at least 10 people in Jenin. and ordered residents to flee the area’s refugee camp. ,
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the Jenin operation, which is entering its third day, marks a change in Israel’s military planning in the occupied West Bank and is “the first in a pattern of repeated raids into Gaza “Lesson”.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to provide details of the Jenin operation, which began on Tuesday and is the third major incursion into Jenin by Israeli forces in less than two years, a crackdown on resistance to Israel’s decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territory. Has been a long standing stronghold of. ,
Residents inside the Jenin refugee camp reported continuous gunfire and explosions on Wednesday, while Palestinian health services reported at least four people injured in the camp.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Wednesday that Israeli forces have used “advanced weaponry and warfare methods, including air strikes” on the Jenin camp, which is now “almost deserted” and houses an estimated 2,000 families. Have been displaced from the area. December.
Roland Friedrich, UNRWA’s director of affairs for the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, said Israel’s “large-scale operation” in Jenin “threatens to undermine the fragile ceasefire reached a few days ago in Gaza”.
Israeli media also reported that two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the Wadi Burkin area near the city of Jenin on Wednesday.
Jenin has resisted Israeli occupation for decades and has earned its reputation as the “capital of the Palestinian resistance”. This is why it still matters today. pic.twitter.com/Yu9nkRi12w
– AJ+ (@ajplus) 22 January 2025
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces had surrounded a building in the city of Burkina and used loudspeakers to order its occupants to evacuate.
Israeli drone airstrikes hit the house, while troops on the ground fired antitank grenades at the building, which was later leveled by military bulldozers.
As the Israeli attack unfolded on Tuesday, 10 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in the Jenin area, including children and medical workers.
Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rab told the AFP news agency that the situation was “very difficult” as Israeli military bulldozers had destroyed all roads leading to the Jenin refugee camp and Jenin’s government hospital. He said Israeli forces had detained about 20 people from villages around Jenin since the operation began on Tuesday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint” from Israeli forces in Jenin and expressed deep concern, according to his deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
On Monday, Guterres told a UN Security Council meeting of his fears amid “a potential threat to the integrity and contiguity” of Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and the “continued” expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The UN chief said that “senior Israeli officials openly talk about formally annexing all or parts of the West Bank in the coming months”.
“Any such capture would be the most serious violation of international law,” he said.
