Israeli forces pull out of Jenin after major operation

Jenin was the focal point of IDF raids. BBC

Lucy Williamson & Raffi Berg, Jenin and London, September 6 — Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after a major nine-day operation there.

The area - a stronghold of militants and with a civilian population of about 60,000 - was targeted in one of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) biggest actions in the West Bank for years. The IDF said it was acting against terrorism.

At least 36 Palestinians were killed - 21 from Jenin governorate - the Palestinian health ministry says.

Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

An Israeli soldier was also killed during fighting in Jenin.

The city of Tubas and al-Faraa refugee camp were also raided during the operation across the northern West Bank - the deadliest of its kind since the start of the war in Gaza last October triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel.

Hundreds of troops from several branches of the security forces were involved, with civilians confined to their homes and utilities cut as the Israeli military battled with militants on the ground and with air strikes.

Residents of Jenin camp in the west of the city are emerging into the streets for the first time since the IDF began its assault on 27 August.

Many, stunned and exhausted, slowly assessed the damage - the new layers of destruction mapping this operation onto the camp.

Khalid abu Sabeer lives in a basement apartment next to the mosque. The entire floor of his home, he said, was blown out by a powerful explosion.

The Israeli army was interested in a cave beneath the building, he said, that had been there for decades, empty.

The IDF asked him to leave before blowing it up – and his home along with it.

Another resident of the camp, Mustafa Antir, described intense attacks from Israel.

“It was impossible to tell where it was coming from: explosions, drones, shooting. Here and here and here, and from the sky. You can’t imagine how heavy it was.”

Years of violent confrontation between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups have been etched into Jenin's narrow pathways – bullet-holes scattered across walls, piles of rubble left by military bulldozers, graffiti in the shape of M16 rifles, along with the name "Hamas".

Among the destruction is a hole in the middle of the city centre – the main road broken and impassable.

Construction vehicles dig whole tree trunks out of the shattered road and cart them away. Shop owners and photojournalists clamber over the rubble to inspect the damage.

On either side, a crowd has paused to watch the rebuilding: residents on foot, on scooters, on bicycles, out on the streets for the first time in more than nine days.

The head of Jenin’s government hospital, Dr Wissam Bakr, who is also there, says the first four days of the Israeli operation were the hardest for the hospital, with power and water supplies cut.

They were relying on generators and water tanks, he said, with two new-borns and two elderly patients on ventilators.

Further down the same road, the sounds of the city have returned: stallholders are back at the edge of the marketplace, hawking carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables; the cafes around packed with generations of men and boys.

On Friday morning, gunfire erupted again in the refugee camp, signalling the start of many funerals taking place. The BBC understands at least eight of the dead are civilians, including a 16-year-old girl.

At the funeral of Mohammed Zubeidi, one of five militants killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tubas on Thursday, a Palestinian fighter spoke defiantly.

"When you see the Israelis kill your brother, kill this or that person, how do you – in your heart – stay sitting and looking at all of this?" he said to the BBC.

"People are afraid that they’re coming to destroy their homes, or arrest them, but so what? Let them arrest everyone – my brother has been arrested for two years. So what?”

The IDF said Zubeidi was “a significant terrorist from the Jenin area”.

He was also the son of Zakaria Zubeidi, the imprisoned former commander in Jenin of the Fatah movement’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

In a statement, the Israeli military said that in the Jenin area "14 terrorists [had] been eliminated, over 30 suspects [had] been apprehended, [and] approximately 30 explosives planted under roads were dismantled" during the operation.

It said it had also dismantled what it called "numerous terror infrastructure sites... including an underground weapons storage facility located beneath a mosque, and a lab used to manufacture explosives" and had removed "large quantities of weapons".

The Palestinian health ministry says three Palestinians have also been killed in the southern governorate of Hebron over the past nine days.

The Israeli military said one of them carried out a shooting attack that killed three Israeli police officers near Tarqumiyah on Sunday.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

More than 600 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, the Palestinian health ministry says. Israel says it is trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.