Israel targets West Bank militant stronghold

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli drone strikes targeted a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank early Monday, deploying hundreds of soldiers to the area in an incursion similar to that of two decades ago. Large-scale military operations during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Palestinian health officials said at least five Palestinians had died.

Troops remained inside the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, advancing the largest operation in more than a year of fighting in the area. The move comes amid growing domestic pressure for a tough response to a spate of attacks against Israeli settlers, including a shooting that killed four last week.

Black smoke billowed from the camp’s crowded streets as the army approached. Power was cut in some areas and military bulldozers were plowing the narrow streets – a fresh reminder of Israel’s incursions during the last intifada. Palestinians and neighboring Jordan condemned the violence.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the operation began just after 1 a.m. with an airstrike on a building the militants were using to plan the attack. The goal of the operation was to destroy and confiscate weapons, he said.

“We’re not going to hold our ground,” he said. “We’re taking action against specific targets.”

He said a brigade-sized force — about 2,000 soldiers — was taking part in the operation, with military drones carrying out a series of strikes to clear the way for ground troops. While Israel has carried out isolated airstrikes in the West Bank in recent weeks, Hecht said Monday’s series of strikes marked an escalation not seen since the end of the Palestinian uprising in 2006.

While Israel said the attack was a precision operation, smoke billowed from the crowded camp, with mosque minarets nearby. The ambulance drove quickly to a hospital, and the wounded were carried into the hospital on stretchers.

Armored bulldozers drove through the narrow streets, clearing the way for troops and destroying property along the way. Residents reported that large areas of the camp were without power.

The military blocked roads inside the camp, seized houses and buildings and set snipers on rooftops, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

At least five Palestinians were killed and 27 were injured, three of them seriously, on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said. Hecht said as many as seven militants were believed to be dead.

In a separate incident, a 21-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the ministry said.

“Our Palestinian people will not kneel, surrender or raise the white flag in the face of this brutal aggression,” Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeneh said in a statement. will stand steadfast in their own land.”

Jordan has called on Israel to stop its attacks on the West Bank.

Since the spring of 2022, the Jenin refugee camp and the neighboring town of the same name have been the trigger for the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Jenin has long been a bastion of the armed struggle against Israel and a major point of friction in the last Palestinian uprising.

In 2002, Israeli troops launched a massive operation in the Jenin refugee camp days after a suicide bombing killed 30 Palestinians during a large Passover gathering. They fought the militants line-by-line for eight days and nights, using armored bulldozers to destroy rows of houses, many of which were booby-trapped.

Monday’s raid came two weeks after another violent clash in Jenin, where the military said a rocket was fired from the area last week and landed in the West Bank.

“There’s been a lot of energy around Jenin last year,” Hecht said, defending Monday’s strategy. “It’s been getting worse all the time.”

But there may also be political considerations at play. Key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, dominated by West Bank settlers and their supporters, have been calling for a broader military response to the ongoing violence in the region.

“So proud of our heroes on all fronts, especially those who fought in Jenin this morning,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted. He is an ultranationalist who recently called on Israel to kill “thousands” of militants if necessary. “Pray for their success.”

Monday’s incident brought the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank this year to 133, part of a surge in violence in more than a year that has seen the worst bloodshed in the region in nearly two decades.

Violence escalated last year after a series of attacks in Palestine prompted Israel to ramp up attacks on the West Bank.

Israel said the attack was aimed at repelling the militants. Palestinians say the violence is inevitable in the absence of any political process with Israel, West Bank settlement construction and increased violence by extremist settlers. They see Israel’s increased military presence in the region as a consolidation of Israel’s 56-year endless occupation of the territory.

Israel said most of those killed were militants, but youths who threw stones in protest of the invasion were also killed, as were those not involved in the confrontation.

Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 24 people since the beginning of the year.

In the 1967 Middle East War, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The territories are sought by the Palestinians to establish what they want as an independent state.