10 people have died and thousands of civilians have fled as Israel continues its hunt for West Bank militants

Thousands of people fled to safety as military bulldozers tore through the refugee camp in the West Bank as Israeli forces continued their search for Palestinian terrorists and weapons on Tuesday. Ten Palestinians have already perished in the last two days.

One of the most intensive military operations to take place in the occupied West Bank in over two decades is the massive attack on the Jenin camp, which started on Monday. The attack came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under increasing pressure from his ultranationalist political allies to take a tough stance against recent attacks on Israeli settlers, including a shooting that left four people dead last month. It bore hallmarks of Israeli military tactics used during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.

On Tuesday morning, Jenin’s streets were covered in debris, and there were reports of store damage. Periodically, columns of black smoke dotted the skyline above the camp in the city in the northern West Bank, which has long served as a bastion for Palestinian militants.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, many thousand Palestinians left as the incursion began, looking for refuge in shelters and with relatives outside the camp. Residents said that the camp lacked both water and power.

Palestinians staged a mass strike across the West Bank to protest the Israeli incursion.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, two additional deaths were recorded overnight, bringing the total number of fatalities over the previous two days to 10. All of them, according to the Israeli military, were militants, although no specifics were given.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, said on Monday that Jenin had been the source of some 50 strikes in the previous year, prompting Israel to initiate the operation.

Since Israeli-Palestinian violence started to increase in the spring of 2022, the Jenin camp and a nearby town of the same name have become a hotspot. During the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, it was also a hub of Palestinian military activity.

According to the IDF, hundreds of Israeli soldiers resumed their operations inside the camp on Tuesday, capturing weapons and explosives and demolishing command structures and tunnels.

Since Monday, the army is believed to have detained at least 120 alleged Palestinian terrorists, according to Israeli media. \

Israel’s intervention was denounced by the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Palestinian self-rule administration in the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, all of whom have normalized relations with Israel. As part of a more than 12-month increase in violence that has witnessed some of the worst killings in the region in close to two decades, more than 140 Palestinians have been slain this year in the West Bank. At least 26 individuals have died as a result of Palestinian assaults against Israelis.

According to Israel, the operations are intended to take out Palestinian terrorists and prevent strikes. According to the Palestinians, this kind of violence is unavoidable in the absence of any political negotiations with Israel, as well as because of rising West Bank settlement expansion and extreme settlers’ violence.

Israel claims that although majority of those murdered were militants, there were additional deaths among youngsters hurling stones in protest of the incursions and those who were not engaged in any altercations.

In the 1967 Middle East conflict, Israel seized control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are looking for such areas for their future sovereign state.