Israeli forces ‘block entrances to Jenin’ as deadly raid enters fourth day

As the deadly raid into the city’s fourth day approached, Israeli forces said Friday, blocking four main entrances to Jenin City and its refugee camp.

According to Mansour Saadi, the deputy governor of Jenin, the Israeli army “blocked all four main entrances to the city and its refugee camp with earth mounds, preventing entry and exit.”

According to Palestinian sources, Israeli forces reportedly erected a curfew from Thursday night until Friday morning and used loudspeakers to launch drones in the refugee camp.

Additionally, Israeli forces reportedly set fire to the camp’s homes and prevented civil defense from reaching the area to extinguish the blaze.

As thousands of Palestinians fled the deadly assault by Israeli forces on Thursday, they issued forced evacuation orders to residents of the Jenin refugee camp.

Israeli forces have increased their operations across the occupied West Bank since January 21, just days after the Gaza ceasefire was declared in effect on January 19.

After an Israeli raid in a village near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian women stand across from a house’s rubble. [AFP]

As of Thursday, the death toll in Israeli raids had reached 12. Dozens have also been wounded and detained.

According to Saadi, the situation at the Jenin government hospital was “dire” on Friday, with doctors having to struggle to treat patients as a result of the ongoing Israeli operation’s power cuts and fuel shortages.

Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said many Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including in Jenin, fear Israel will do “just as it did in Gaza”.

Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes in the Jenin refugee camp, according to Salhut, who is reporting from Jordan because Al Jazeera has been prohibited by the Palestinian Authority (PA) from reporting in the occupied West Bank.

“People there claim that Israeli forces want to raze these Palestinian towns to the ground, just like they did in Gaza,” they claim.

Palestinian fighters have also been battling Israeli forces, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera, by attempting to cross Nazareth Street in Jenin while carrying an explosive device. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In some of the ongoing raids, PA security forces were involved in going after Palestinian fighters, including in Tulkarem, Ramallah, Hebron and Qalqilya on Friday.

In Yabad, west of Jenin, Palestinian fighters and PA forces also engage in armed fighting.

After their arrest, PA security forces reportedly severely beat up a number of Palestinian fighters.

Later on Friday, the&nbsp, United Nations voiced serious concerns over Israeli military’s use of force in West Bank, including methods “developed for war fighting”.

At a press conference in Geneva, UN human rights office spokesman Thameen al-Kheetan stated that “we are deeply concerned by the unlawful use of lethal force in Jenin and the occupied West Bank.”

The recent deadly Israeli operations raise serious questions about the inadequate or excessive use of force, as well as the tools and techniques used to fight war, in violation of international human rights law, international norms, and international standards.

Marwan Bishara, a senior political analyst for Al Jazeera, reported that the Israeli government is shifting its focus from Gaza to the West Bank.

He claimed that the Israeli government’s failures of October 7 are a “deflection” from the operations in Jenin and other parts of the occupied West Bank. Bishara continued, adding that the operation gives Israel an opportunity to advance its annexation policies.

Nearly 900 Palestinians were killed and thousands of others were injured in Israeli forces’ increased size and frequency of raids in the occupied West Bank since the start of the conflict in Gaza in October 2023.