The Israeli army is combing the West Bank city for more militant targets

The Israeli army pushed ahead for a second day on Tuesday with an operation aimed at wiping out armed groups in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, as the Palestinian death toll rose to 10, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel said all those killed so far in the largest incursion it has committed to the area in many years were combatants. Militant groups have so far claimed five of them as members. The Palestinian authorities have not specified whether the dead were all combatants or also civilians.

The sun rose on deserted alleyways in the Jenin Refugee Camp, a usually busy neighborhood adjacent to the city that has been at the center of the military incursion, with up to 3,000 of the camp’s approximately 17,000 residents taking shelter in schools and other public places. buildings, or with families elsewhere, while others holed up in their homes.

About 1,000 troops continued to search the camp on Tuesday after previously finding and seizing caches of weapons, explosives and other military equipment, the Israeli army said, adding that it had also destroyed explosives production laboratories.

Long a hotbed of militancy, Jenin was at the center of escalating tensions and violence in the year leading up to the early Monday morning raid.

A stronghold of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas militant groups, as well as home to newer armed militias that have sprung up and don’t correspond to established organizations, the Jenin area has been the source of dozens of shooting attacks against Israelis, according to Israeli military records. .

The city and its surroundings have been the target of frequent and often deadly raids by the Israeli army to arrest Palestinians suspected of armed activity, often leading to protracted gunfights between Israeli troops and local gunmen.

Israeli officials said the latest military incursion was not intended to capture or hold territory in Jenin, adding that it would take as long as it took to complete the mission. Analysts said that likely meant hours or a few days at most.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Tuesday that 120 wanted men had been arrested and were being questioned by security forces.

“There is no point in the camp that we have not reached, including the core,” Admiral Hagari said wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning. He said each of the military units operating in the camp was given a set of defined targets to search for during the day, adding: “If we get into friction with terrorists, we will fight them.”

Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian Authority official, called on the international community, including the United States, to “intervene immediately” to “stop Israeli aggression and force Israel to immediately withdraw from Jenin and his camp,” the Palestinian Authority warned. relocation of large numbers of residents.

The Palestinian Authority announced it was cutting off all contact with Israel over the Jenin raid.

The operation began shortly after 1 a.m. Monday with drone strikes, a new tactic employed by Israel in the West Bank. The attacks were the most intense use of air power in the occupied territory for about two decades.

In a statement late Monday, the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad claimed four of the dead as combatants, including a 16-year-old boy. Another militia loosely affiliated with Fatah, the mainstream Palestinian faction that dominates the Western-backed Palestinian Authority , covering parts of the West Bank, has claimed a fifth.

Some Palestinian officials said Israel had threatened the camp residents and forced them to leave their homes.

“Houses have been demolished, people have been broken into and people have been driven from their own homes,” Jenin Mayor Nidal Obeidi told the Voice of Palestine radio station on Tuesday. According to reports from the camp broadcast on the station, the sound of explosions and gunfights had been ringing through the camp since dawn.

Israeli officials denied carrying out forced evacuations, but confirmed that some residents had received text messages from Israeli numbers advising them to temporarily evacuate their homes. Admiral Hagari said Israeli forces had allowed and even encouraged women and children to leave.

The local Red Crescent emergency service has reported power outages and water problems in the camp after Israeli armored bulldozers tore up roads to dig up improvised bombs and tripwires.

Analysts and former Israeli army generals said it would be in his interest to complete the operation as soon as possible to avoid mistakes and prevent tensions from spilling over into other areas, such as the Hamas-led area of ​​Gaza, which could lead to greater conflict.

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel; Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; And Iyad Abuheweila from Gaza City.