Israel continues raids in West Bank, arresting 25, Palestinian reports say
The Israeli army continued a new anti-terror operation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Wednesday, arresting at least 25 people in the last day, according to a Palestinian news outlet.
Palestinian officials were quoted by the official Wafa news agency as saying the total number of dead since the start of the offensive had reached 10, up from eight on Tuesday, and four more people were wounded in Jenin.
On the second day, Israel’s attack was not only focused on Jenin.
On Wednesday, the soldiers made arrests in Jenin, Ramallah, Hebron, Tukarm and Bethlehem, the officials said. Improved security at Israeli checkpoints in the state has reduced or halted traffic. In one case, a A 45-year-old woman died at a checkpoint outside of Hebron, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced.
Jenin Mayor Mohammed Jarrar told WAFA that Israeli forces detained around 600 people overnight at Jenin’s government hospital, but they were allowed to leave on Wednesday morning. According to the news agency, Israeli bulldozers blocked the hospital’s gates with debris from nearby roads.
Mr. Jarrar also said people had been forced to leave their homes, a claim denied by Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “There is no evacuation order in Jenin,” he said.
Colonel Shoshani, who gave a brief statement to journalists about the operation, said that the people in the hospital were temporarily prevented from being harmed by the explosives being detonated by the military.
After a temporary ceasefire in Gaza at the end of the week, Israel turned its attention to the West Bank, where tensions have been rising as militants take over and Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian civilians escalate.
Colonel Shoshani said the operation in the West Bank is similar in scope to the military operation in August. The 10-day siege in Jenin has left 21 people dead, according to Palestinian news outlets and residents. It was one of the largest and deadliest raids in the West Bank in years.
The colonel added that the operation was the latest effort to counter attacks by Israeli insurgents, many of whom planted explosives on civilian streets and under Israeli military vehicles.
“Our strategy is to fight those terrorists while allowing the civilian population to continue their lives,” said Colonel Shoshani.
In a series of social media Posts On Wednesday, Roland Friedrich, the UN’s West Bank director of aid to the Palestinians, said that Israel’s operation “is expected to last for days” and that it is using advanced weapons, including airstrikes on Jenin.
