As the army withdraws from Jenin, rockets are fired towards Israel from the Gaza Strip

Following a significant two-day operation in the region, the Israeli military started pulling back its soldiers from Jenin in the West Bank on Wednesday, according to the Israeli army.

In the early-morning Monday attack on the Jenin refugee camp, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right administration, twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died.

In addition to drone strikes and army bulldozers tearing up streets, the raid in the West Bank was Israel’s largest military action in years.

In another incident, a vehicle ramming and stabbing assault left seven people hurt in Tel Aviv on Tuesday before the suspect was killed by gunfire.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 12 Palestinians have already died as a result of the massive Israeli army assault on the Jenin camp.

An Israeli soldier was also killed by “live fire” during the operation, the army said late Tuesday.

The army said early on Wednesday that it had stopped five rockets launched from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. No Palestinian groups immediately took blame for the incident.

An AFP journalist reported on Tuesday that the Jenin camp had been the source of explosions and that a drone had been flying above.

The worst raid in the previous five years, according to Qasem Benighader, a nurse in a hospital mortuary.

The army said that its troops had destroyed six explosives production sites, three operational situation rooms, and seized a sizable number of weaponry in Jenin.

It said that the weapons were found in trucks, a mosque, covert trenches hidden in residential areas, and operational situation rooms.

The army claimed to have found terrorist hideouts, arsenals, and explosives-storage tunnels.

‘CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD’

The increase was described as “open war against the people of Jenin” by the Palestinian foreign ministry.

Doctors Without Borders, a medical aid organization, also criticized Israeli troops for using tear gas inside Jenin’s Khalil Suleiman Hospital, calling it “unacceptable.”

Mai al-Kaila, the Palestinian health minister, even claimed that Palestinians had been shot at by the army in the Jenin public hospital’s courtyard.

The minister informed reporters that the Ibn Sina hospital had also been invaded by Israeli soldiers. “Israel’s aggression reached its climax this afternoon when citizens were shot at directly in the courtyard of Jenin hospital wounding three, two of them seriously,” the minister said.

According to the Israeli army, there were claims on social media that troops had fired at a hospital.

The statement continued, “Terrorist organizations have used civilian areas as a hideout,” adding that “security forces are not currently aware of the reports.”

An army official said that soldiers “have started withdrawing from Jenin camp” late on Tuesday.

In the midst of a countrywide strike, shops in Jenin were closed, leaving the mostly deserted streets strewn with burning barricades and garbage.

“The most dangerous is what happened inside the camp, where there is no electricity, no water, and no roads for those who need to go to the hospital,” Jenin Mayor Nidal Abu Saleh told AFP.

Since the attack started, 3,000 people have left their houses in the refugee camp, according to Kamal Abu al-Roub, the deputy governor of Jenin.

One of the refugees from the demolished camp, Imad Jabarin, said that “all facets of life have been devastated, there is no power and no communications… To some degree, we are shut off from the outside world.

Attacks on Israelis and violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians have both increased recently in the northern West Bank.

Since early last year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become worse, and under the Netanyahu administration, which includes friends on the extreme right, it has been worse still.

The “heroic” Tel Aviv bombing was lauded as “an initial response to crimes against our people in the Jenin camp” by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

Police in Tel Aviv believe the driver purposefully ran over a number of people on a busy roadway before getting out to “stab civilians with a sharp object.”

According to police commander Yaakov Shabtai, the “terrorist” was a citizen of the West Bank who was killed by an armed bystander.

‘STRENGTHEN SETTLEMENTS’ –

The violence in Jenin and Tel Aviv was condemned by the UN.

Volker Turk, the UN’s senior human rights official, said that “the killing, maiming, and destruction of property must stop.”

Protesters torched tires close to the Israeli border barrier in the Gaza Strip, which Israel has encircled and blockaded.

Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has held the West Bank under occupation.

Around 490,000 Israelis presently reside there, with the exception of east Jerusalem, in settlements that are prohibited by international law.

The Palestinians, who want to have their own sovereign state, demand that Israel leave all of the territory it annexed in 1967 and remove all Jewish settlements.

However, Netanyahu has vowed to “strengthen settlements” and has shown little interest in resuming peace negotiations, which have been deadlocked since 2014.

According to an AFP count collated by official sources on both sides, at least 190 Palestinians, 26 Israelis, one Ukrainian, and one Italian have died this year.

On the Palestinian side, there are both fighters and civilians, while on the Israeli side, there are mostly civilians and three Arab minorities.