Israel’s “Brigade-Sized” Assault
Israeli military armored vehicles advance on a road during an operation in Jenin in the West Bank on July 3.Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
Israeli forces launched their fiercest operation in the West Bank in two decades early Monday. The “brigade-sized” assault on the Jenin refugee camp involved upwards of 2,000 Israeli troops as well as drone strikes. At least eight Palestinians were killed and 50 more wounded in the operation.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the assault was a counterterrorism effort to destroy infrastructure and communications technology used by Palestinian militants—specifically the Jenin Brigades—based in the camp and to “break the safe haven mindset of the camp, which has become a hornet’s nest,” one Israeli spokesperson said. The roughly quarter-square-mile area is home to around 14,000 Palestinians, including members of terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli troops said they targeted a weapons production and explosives storage facility as well as a joint operations center used by militants for observation and reconnaissance missions to coordinate attacks. A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli operation as “a new war crime against our defenseless people.”
This was not the first major Israeli operation in Jenin in recent weeks. On June 19, Israeli forces conducted a raid to arrest two Palestinian militants, which quickly turned deadly amid escalating crossfire. Reports indicate a roadside bomb was set off by Palestinian forces to push back IDF troops. In turn, Israel deployed Apache combat helicopters to extricate its troops, killing at least six Palestinians. Two days later, Israel conducted its first drone strike in the West Bank since 2006, which led to Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages that resulted in numerous casualties on both sides.
Under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government has increased bureaucratic efforts to annex the West Bank, including Jenin. Despite evidence of Israel applying its sovereignty on the West Bank, though, “the world has not treated Israel’s actions as a violation of one of the core tenets of international law,” Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard argued in Foreign Policy in early June. “The United States and other Western countries’ apathy toward Israel’s changing legal regime in the West Bank poses grave real-life consequences for Palestinians under occupation.”