According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel has destroyed several structures in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after its forces killed a 73-year-old man.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the attack on Sunday left at least 20 homes ruined by powerful blasts that could be heard in Jenin and nearby towns.
According to Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents, the explosions destroyed a residential neighborhood in the camp’s ad-Damj neighborhood.
The Israeli military confirmed the attack, saying it had destroyed “several buildings” in Jenin that “were used as terrorist infrastructure”, without providing evidence. Since mid-January, it has killed 50 Palestinian fighters in the West Bank, according to the statement.
In a separate incident in Arroub, in the southern West Bank, the Israeli army killed a 27-year-old man, named as Mohammed Amjad Hadoush, the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
Israel’s military launched a significant offensive in the occupied West Bank last month, known as the “Iron Wall,” which aimed primarily at attacking Palestinian-armed groups from the Jenin region shortly after it announced a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza on January 19.
As Israel increasingly attacks Palestinian infrastructure without restraint, the explosions on Sunday represent an escalation.
“The sounds are horrific”, Jenin resident Henna al-Haj Hassan told Al Jazeera via phone about the explosions.
Hassan claimed that she and other Jenin residents have been victims of attacks for two weeks. She added that stores and other businesses were closed as a result of a curfew in place.
The director of Jenin Government Hospital, Wisam Baker, told Wafa some sections of the hospital were damaged due to the explosions, but no casualties were reported.
Many families are now displaced due to the demolitions, the news agency said.
Ahmed Tobasi, another Jenin resident, said the houses in the Jenin camp “are not really livable any more” due to Israel destroying infrastructure.
According to the lifelong resident of Jenin, “the Israeli army doesn’t need any excuses to destroy our homes and relocate us.”
“This is a very long, old plan by the Israeli army, especially for the]refugee] camps, because they want to kill and make the Palestinian case die”.
He added: “So it’s not about terrorism, this is normal residences, people who live – and when you talk about one house, it’s not really one family living there. In Jenin camp, you find one house with three to four families”.
Elderly man killed
The explosions occurred shortly after a 73-year-old man was killed by Israeli gunfire in Jenin’s refugee camp, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Sunday, the latest casualty of Israel’s swooping raids.
According to Hamdah Salhut, an Israeli army “has established numerous roadblocks and other checkpoints” throughout the occupied West Bank, killing at least 27 Palestinians.
“Many of them are civilians, including a two-year-old girl who was shot in the head while eating dinner at home with her family, and a 73-year-old elderly man shot by Israeli forces this morning”.
Witnesses reported a sizable Israeli military deployment early on Sunday in the southeast of Jenin’s Tubas and Tammun towns.
A “tactical group” had started operations around Tammun and had found weapons, the army announced early on Sunday.
It added it was extending the “counterterrorism” operation to five villages.
Additionally, it distributed Arabic leaflets claiming the operation was to “eradicate armed criminals, the lackeys of Iran.”
The Israeli government accuses Iran of trying to send weapons and money to armed Palestinian groups in the occupied West Bank, which supports armed groups in the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s Jenin operation has also forcibly displaced some 15, 000 Palestinians.
Settlers storm cemetery, mosque
Also on Sunday, Israeli settlers stormed a cemetery in Silwan town, south of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem, under the protection of the Israeli army, according to Wafa.
According to local sources who spoke to the Palestinian news agency, the settlers seized control of the cemetery after they had cut the fence that the locals had erected.
Meanwhile, Palestinian outlets reported that overnight, a mosque in the Bedouin village of Arab al-Mleihat, northwest of Jericho, was set on fire by Israeli settlers.
The attacks were condemned by the Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Since the Gaza War started in 2023, Israeli settlers and soldiers have been robbing Palestinians all over the occupied West Bank.
Since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, soldiers or settlers have killed at least 882 Palestinians.
Source: Aljazeera
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