Palestinians defiant amid damage after Israel ends Jenin raid

[July 05, 2023]  By Ali Sawafta

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinians returned to the scarred streets of Jenin on Wednesday after Israel ended an unusually intense 48-hour raid, some of them preparing heroes' funerals for the dead while others set about repairing the 75-year-old refugee camp.

Paving had been churned up by armoured bulldozers, causing a water pipe to burst and leaving sodden gullies of rubble that residents - many of whom had holed up at home, or evacuated as a precaution - traversed with a grim and businesslike gait.

After months of spiralling skirmishes with Jenin's gunmen, Israel on Monday swamped the city's refugee camp with hundreds of commandos backed by combat drones. Commanders said the operation - dubbed "Home and Garden" - aimed to root out Palestinian militant infrastructure.

"They did not get what they wanted, thank God. The youths are fine, the families are fine and the camp is fine," Mutasem Estatia, a father of six, told Reuters after what he described as two nights being kept away, one of them in Israeli detention.

Twelve Palestinian men or male teenagers were killed, five of them confirmed fighters from the Hamas or Islamic Jihad factions. Scores of Palestinians were wounded. The army - which lost a soldier in the clashes - said it killed combatants only.

Israeli forces also detained around 150 suspected militants and destroyed caches of guns and roadside mines - including an arsenal under a mosque - and a command centre, the army said.

"There are 12 martyrs and we are proud of them, but we expected more damage given the raid's scale," Estatia said.

Israel appeared poised to return to Jenin and other areas of the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians seek statehood.

Palestinian girls sit outside a damaged house following an Israeli military operation, in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 5, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

"I've made clear that this broad action in Jenin is not a one-off," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Channel 14 TV on Monday. "It will be the beginning of regular incursions and continuous control of the territory and that's why there'll be no safe haven for terrorism."

As the troops withdrew overnight, Israel reported a volley of rockets from the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory. The rockets were shot down and Israel's air force struck targets in Gaza belonging to the ruling Hamas, causing no casualties.

In a further sign of violence spilling over from Jenin, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in Tel Aviv on Monday and went on a stabbing spree, wounding eight people before he was shot dead. Hamas claimed him as a member.

"We say to the enemy: The time when you could practice your aggression against our people without paying the price has passed. Today, Jenin is teaching you a lesson in resistance and steadfastness," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement.

The tenement-like camp houses refugees from the 1948 war of Israel's founding. Poverty, frustrated peace diplomacy and political drift have stoked support for Iranian-backed groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which preach Israel's destruction.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

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