Jenin refugee camp, occupied West Bank – On the morning of January 26, Israel launched what residents said was the largest military attack on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied northern West Bank since 2002.
The Israeli army killed nine Palestinians, including two children and a 61-year-old woman, in a matter of hours, in what Palestinians described as a “massacre”.
Israeli secret forces, later backed by dozens of armored vehicles and tractors, raided the camp in private cars shortly before 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) as residents prepared to go to work and school.
They surrounded a house in the camp’s Jarret al-Dahab neighborhood, where several Palestinian resistance fighters were sheltering, and fired surface-to-air missiles and explosives at it, which also set the house on fire. Three known fighters were killed in the house, while another was wounded and arrested by the army.
The fighters were identified as brothers 28-year-old Mohammad and 25-year-old Nour-al Din Ghneim from Burqin town on the outskirts of Jenin city and 30-year-old Mohammad Soboh from the camp. The three were found murdered in the house after the army withdrew from the camp.
Armed clashes then broke out with Palestinian fighters in the camp, during which the Israeli army, including snipers stationed on rooftops, fired live ammunition indiscriminately at houses, windows and cars, residents said, and in some cases used missiles, leaving a trail blood and destruction.
The Israeli army justified the operation by saying that the raid was planned to arrest Islamic Jihad fighters.
One woman – 61-year-old Majida Obaid – was killed as she sat outside her bedroom window and watched the events from above. Another, 16-year-old Wasim Abu Jaes, was run over by an Israeli military vehicle and killed.
Ambulances were unable to provide aid to the wounded for a long time and were directly shot at. Israeli forces also fired tear gas at the public hospital in Jenin, which entered the children’s ward, causing suffocation injuries among the children.
The Israeli army has denied that it deliberately targeted the hospital. “No one deliberately fired tear gas at the hospital,” an army spokesman said. “But the activity was not far from the hospital and it is possible that the tear gas came in through an open window.”