Israel reported new operations against armed Palestinian groups in the occupied West Bank overnight, as the Palestinian Ministry of Health said four men were killed in an Israeli air and ground operation in Jenin.
The four men were named as Amir Sharbji, 25; Nawras Bajawi, 28; Wiaam Hanoun, 27; and Mousa Jabarin, 23. Five others were injured, two of whom were in critical condition, health officials said. Israel said Hanoun was a prominent member of Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli military said the Jenin operation was one of several carried out across the West Bank. Others took place in Hebron and in various villages across the territory.
According to Palestinian eyewitnesses in Jenin, the Israeli army launched two airstrikes on the refugee camp, causing severe damage to buildings.
In separate videos obtained by CNN, an Israeli bulldozer can be seen repeatedly driving into a building apparently trying to smash down the ground floor frontage.
Another video shows the arched gates at the camp entrance being destroyed as a bulldozer drives backward and forward into the structure.
Other videos record intense bursts of gunfire.
In a statement Monday morning, Israeli officials – using biblical terms to reference the West Bank – said, “At the end of an extensive arrest operation to thwart terrorism and confiscate weapons tonight, 51 wanted persons were arrested in Judea and Samaria, of which 38 were operatives in the terrorist organization Hamas.”
The statement said that Israeli forces had located and destroyed what they said was a booby-trapped observation post, as well as a vehicle in which “ammunition and military equipment were found.”
The latest fatalities bring the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank since October 7 to 121, according to Palestinian Ministry of Health figures.
The UN’s humanitarian affairs office says that figure amounts to more than a third of all Palestinians killed in the West Bank by soldiers or settlers since the beginning of 2023.
Some background: Jenin sits toward the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has officially been under the administration of the Palestinian Authority since 1993.
The city houses a tightly packed refugee camp, which has been the focus of this week’s raids. It was established in 1953 for Palestinians who were uprooted from their homes after Israel’s creation in 1948. Decades later, it’s now a built-up area with homes, shops and schools, but it has one of the highest rates of poverty of all of the West Bank refugee camps, according to the UN.
