West Bank: Israel’s army on Wednesday pulled back troops from rebel strongholds in the West Bank. With this, his intense military campaign in the area after nearly two decades came to an end. At least 12 Palestinians have been killed, thousands left homeless and widespread damage has been caused by Israel’s two-day military operation.
An Israeli soldier was also killed in this operation. When the residents of the Jenin refugee camps came out of their homes after the troops returned, they found cars either crushed or badly damaged. Shopkeepers and bulldozers have started the work of removing the debris. Thousands of people who fled their homes because of the fighting have started returning.
Kefah Dabayya, a 33-year-old resident of the Jenin refugee camp, said he saw the devastation when he returned home on Wednesday. He said, “Roads have been broken and many houses have been damaged, window panes have been shattered. Although Dabayya’s house was not damaged in this, there is no water, electricity, and internet connection at home.
The army claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties on rebel groups in the Jenin refugee camp in the operation. Large-scale airstrikes were also carried out during the campaign. It is not yet clear whether this will have any long-term effect after nearly a year and a half of fierce fighting in the West Bank. Before the withdrawal of the troops, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to conduct more such operations if needed.
“We are now winding down the operation and I can say that our intensive operation in Jenin is not just a one-off,” he said while visiting a military post on the outskirts of Jenin. Wherever we find extremism, we will eliminate it. The operation in Jenin was Israel’s largest military operation in the West Bank since the conflict two decades earlier.
A Hamas extremist drove a car into people at a crowded Tel Aviv bus station before Israeli troops could withdraw and then went on a knife rampage, injuring eight people, including a pregnant woman. It is being told that the child of the pregnant woman has died. The assailant was killed by a civilian armed with a weapon at the scene. Hamas said the attack was in retaliation for Israel’s actions.
On Wednesday, Hamas extremists also fired five rockets toward Israel. All the rockets were shot down before reaching the target. Israeli aircraft also attacked several targets in Gaza. Palestinian health officials said 12 Palestinians were killed and more than 140 wounded in the Israeli attacks. In a separate incident in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli forces killed another Palestinian.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel had wrapped up a “comprehensive action against the terrorist enclave” and that similar missions would take place in the future.
