Israeli forces leave trail of destruction in Jenin after days-long raid

JENIN, West Bank - The Israeli military withdrew from the West Bank city of Jenin early Friday, ending a days-long incursion that was one of the longest and deadliest in the territory in years - and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

The withdrawal from Jenin, after more than a week of fighting, took place around dawn, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, after which residents emerged from their homes to assess the damage.

“There is no reason for this,” Moayed Khalifa, 65, said as he surveyed the wreckage of his smoothie bar, Choco Banana. The military, he said, had barreled through the steel door and filled his shop with debris, upending the livelihoods of three families who depend on the store’s revenue.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it killed 14 fighters, including the head of Hamas operations in Jenin, Wesam Khazem, 28. Hamas confirmed the deaths of Khazem and two others in a statement last week.

“Numerous terror infrastructure sites were dismantled,” the IDF said Friday, adding that 30 more people were apprehended. “The forces also located and confiscated large quantities of weapons.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah also said Friday that 21 people were killed in Jenin and its sprawling refugee camp, including children and the elderly. It did not say how many of the dead were militants. One IDF soldier was killed in Jenin on Saturday, the military said.

The incursion into Jenin started late last month when hundreds of Israeli troops, police and intelligence operatives launched raids in several areas of the northern West Bank, including the neighboring city of Tulkarm and the al-Faraa refugee camp.

The IDF said the operation was aimed at rooting out Palestinian militants and destroying their weapons and infrastructure after a string of attacks. On Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said 36 people were killed in the northern West Bank since the raids started, including the 21 fatalities in Jenin. Among the dead were eight minors and two who were elderly, the ministry said.

Tensions in the West Bank, which Israel occupies, have soared in recent years as Israeli authorities expand Jewish settlements in territory Palestinians hope will be part of a future state.

In the 11 months since the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli forces have killed at least 634 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. During the same period, 18 Israelis, including 13 Israeli forces members and five settlers, were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Israeli military frequently raids the Jenin refugee camp, which has a long history of militant activity and has recently reemerged as the hub for a new generation of fighters opposed to Israel’s occupation. Here, fighters from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others have recently coalesced under the banner of the Jenin Battalion, an umbrella group which has carried out attacks on the IDF.

But residents said the latest Israeli military operation was the most intense in recent years, with families trapped at home without food, water or electricity as the surprise raid began. Others said they were able to flee to nearby villages between gun battles and airstrikes, while some were evicted by Israeli forces who trashed the homes they searched or seized them as bases, according to residents.

Fauzia Hossain, 56, said she, her son, his wife and other family members spent the first five days of the raid holed up in their two-story house without electricity. Then soldiers barged in and ordered the family out, she said, adding that they fled the camp first on foot under the threat of sniper fire. They eventually reached a car and traveled to Mirka, a village about 7.5 miles southwest of Jenin.

When they returned Friday morning, they said they found their home upturned by Israeli forces who appeared to have used the house as a temporary base. On one wall, someone had written what appeared to be a list of soldiers’ names and their shifts, the family said. In the kitchen, there were dirty dishes, empty packages of pasta and cereal and sauce smeared on the floor. Windows, doors, dressers and other furniture were also all broken.

In other homes, residents came back to vandalized family photos or pro-Israel graffiti on the walls. The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This is our home,” Hossain said. “We have nowhere else to go.”

But the destruction wasn’t only in homes. Armored Israeli bulldozers also tore through Jenin’s commercial center, leaving parts of the main road almost impassable. The IDF has said it uses the bulldozers to search for and dismantle explosives buried by militants in the roads.

Crowds here gathered Friday morning as Palestinians worked to clear the mounds of rubble. Local officials from the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that controls parts of the West Bank, used bulldozers and an excavator to remove cement blocks torn from the road.

Remnants of daily life from before the raid - a large umbrella, AstroTurf and crushed cans - littered the streets. Dust clung to the air, and some people wore masks to dampen the smell of sewage and trash.

On Thursday, ahead of the withdrawal, Jenin Mayor Nidal Abu Saleh said in an interview that the damage from Israel’s incursion had affected large swaths of infrastructure, including roads, the main water and sewage systems, and the electricity network.

He estimated the cost of the destruction to be more than $13 million but said officials had yet to tally all the damage, including in the refugee camp.

In the eastern part of the city, 83-year-old Tawfeek Qandeel went out to find food on Aug. 30, according to his son, Arafat Qandeel, who said Israeli forces were stationed at a nearby mosque.

As Tawfeek Qandeel approached, the troops shot him, his son said. A video later emerged - and was posted online by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry - showing his body lying on a torn-up street and an Israeli armored vehicle running over his leg.

The IDF did not respond to a request for comment on the incident, but it told CNN in a statement that security forces had shot and killed “an individual approaching their position,” and that the incident was under review.

“As the troops were departing the scene, an IDF vehicle inadvertently struck the deceased’s body,” the statement said, according to CNN.

Arafat Qandeel said that it took about an hour for an ambulance to reach his father. According to medics and hospital officials, Israeli forces repeatedly blocked ambulances from accessing the dead and injured.

From the first day of the raid, Israeli forces surrounded the Jenin Governmental Hospital, said Wassim Baker, the hospital’s director. “They allow the medical team and staff to go in and out only via ambulances, which are checked upon entry and when they depart,” he said by phone on Thursday.

Mohammed al-Saadi, director of the Jenin branch of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, said that when his team could reach the camp or other parts of the city, they would distribute donated food and water to families trapped inside.

Residents said they tried to track the movement of Israeli troops and alert others when it might be clear to move around. But the locations were constantly changing.

Mohamed Abu Sameer said that one day he went outside after a relative said in a family WhatsApp group that the military had left the area of Jorat al-Dahab, a hard-hit neighborhood in the camp. But as he walked up a battered road, he saw Israeli forces approaching.

“Why they didn’t shoot me, I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe because both of us were terrified.”

On Tuesday, 16-year-old Loujain Musleh was shot and killed in Kufr Dan, west of Jenin, as Israeli troops raided a house nearby.

“Snipers were everywhere,” Osama Musleh, Loujain’s father, said of the morning she was killed. She “went to have a look from the window,” he said, and moved the curtain to see what was happening.

“Then she was shot. The army shot six bullets,” including two that hit Loujain, he said.

The IDF said in a statement that it was operating in Kufr Dan after it received information that “armed terrorists” were hiding there. It said it was “aware of the report regarding a sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed during the exchange of fire” and that “the details of the incident are under review.”

Fauzia’s son, 27-year-old Mohammed Hossain, said Friday that the Israeli raids, especially when deadly, only increase anger at Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and boost the popularity of the Jenin Battalion and other armed groups in the West Bank.

“When one person is killed,” he said, “10 more people are arguing to get his gun.”

- - -

Suliman reported from London, Fahim from Beirut. Hazem Balousha in Cairo contributed to this report.