Jenin faces destruction, displacement amid Israeli operations in West Bank
WEST BANK
Palestinian families were forced to evacuate the eastern neighborhood of Jenin in the northern West Bank due to ongoing Israeli military operations.
The death toll from a three-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank rose to 20 on Friday, Israel and the Palestinian health ministry said, while violence raged on in the Gaza Strip.
It came as U.S.-based aid group Anera said an Israeli strike killed four Palestinians accompanying its convoy on Thursday. The Israeli military reported it had struck armed assailants.
The U.N.'s World Food Programme on Wednesday said it had suspended aid operations after one of its vehicles was hit by an Israeli strike.
In the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged she would not change Washington's policy of supplying weapons to Israel if elected to the top job in November. But she stressed it was time to "end this war" in Gaza.
Israel has described its raids on towns and refugee camps across the northern West Bank as "counter-terrorism" operations.
Operations have resulted in significant distress and displacement for the residents.
Troops pulled back from other West Bank towns late Thursday but fighting raged on around Jenin, long a hub of militant activity.
Several evacuees from the area, where military activities are concentrated, described their experiences to Anadolu Agency. They cited Israeli operations and the lack of food and water supplies as reasons for leaving their homes.
Jaber Abu Raih, a local resident, shared, “The Israeli army stormed into our house, bringing their equipment, food, and everything they needed, turning our home into a military post.” He recounted that the army advised them to “find alternative arrangements; this is going to be a long ordeal.”
Abu Raih depicted the dire conditions in the neighborhood by stating, “The destruction is vast, the army is waging a real war. The residents are left without food, medicine, or water.” He and his family fled on foot, walking for about an hour to an unspecified destination. He is one of many, including women, children, and the elderly, who have fled eastern Jenin to escape the Israeli military activities.
Earlier in the day, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that their teams faced “significant difficulties in responding to calls for help from citizens trapped in Jenin city and its camp for the third consecutive day, due to the Israeli forces hindering ambulance movements.”
The Israeli military launched a large-scale operation early Wednesday in the northern West Bank cities of Tulkarm, Jenin, and Tubas, described as the "largest" since 2002. By Thursday evening, the military had withdrawn from Tulkarm and the Al Fara camp in Tubas, leaving behind significant destruction.
Amid ongoing tensions across the occupied West Bank due to a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip that has claimed over 40,600 Palestinian lives, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year, the situation remains dire.
According to Palestinian figures, at least 673 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 5,400 injured, and over 10,300 arrested in the occupied territory.
The Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said at least 45 people had been detained in the West Bank since Wednesday. The Israeli military said it had "apprehended 17 suspects linked to terrorist activists".
Britain on Friday said it was "deeply" concerned by the raids, urging Israel to "exercise restraint" and adhere to international law.
France said the Israeli operations "worsen a climate of unprecedented instability and violence", while Spain denounced "an outbreak of violence which is clearly unacceptable".
On July 19, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark opinion, declaring Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Vaccination 'pauses'
In Gaza, Israeli artillery pounded western areas of Gaza City early Friday, an AFP journalist said, while a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The World Health Organization said Israel had agreed to at least three days of "humanitarian pauses" in parts of Gaza, starting Sunday, to facilitate a vaccination drive after the territory recorded its first case of polio in a quarter of a century.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the measures were "not a ceasefire".
'Basic sense of humanity'
Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on Friday, the civil defense agency in the Hamas-ruled territory said.
The acting head of the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA), Joyce Msuya, said "more than 88 percent of Gaza's territory has come under an (Israeli) order to evacuate at some point", adding civilians were being forced into just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.
"It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?"
OCHA on Friday said that "in August, the number of humanitarian missions and movements within Gaza that have been denied access by Israeli authorities has almost doubled, compared with July".
The Israeli military body tasked with governing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, meanwhile said "3,577 aid pallets from international organizations began unloading at the Port of Ashdod after being transported by sea from Cyprus".
The war has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The military on Friday said it had wrapped up a month-long operation in southern and central Gaza that it said killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters.
Some Palestinians returned to find massive destruction in parts of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
In Khan Yunis, Amal al-Astal, 48, said: "We found our house destroyed and our neighbours' (houses) destroyed as well. One of our neighbours' corpses was decomposed there."
Mohamed Abu Thuria told AFP he had "found massive destruction everywhere" on returning to Deir el-Balah.
The Gaza war has drawn in Iran-backed fighters from across the region, including Lebanon and Yemen, sparking fears that it could spread into a wider conflagration.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Friday warned that "there is still a very significant risk of escalation at the regional level".