Ramallah, January 23 (RHC)-- In the occupied West Bank, residents of the Jenin refugee camp are reporting constant gunfire and explosions as Israel’s deadly raid entered its third day. 

Doctors and eyewitnesses say Israeli soldiers are besieging two hospitals, with medical teams coming under fire and ambulance crews barred from reaching the dead and wounded. 

Some 600 medical workers and patients are sheltering inside Jenin’s Khalil Suleiman governmental hospital with dwindling supplies of food and water.  The hospital’s director reports three doctors and two nurses were shot on the road leading to the hospital this week.

Elsewhere, two Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid on the town of Burqin, outside Jenin.  Residents say Israeli troops have begun forcing families to leave their homes as part of a campaign to break Palestinian resistance.

One local resident, Adel Besher, said: “What they failed to achieve in Gaza, they are trying to make up for it here in Jenin — not only in Jenin.  Jenin is the center of resistance and fighting.  If they finish the resistance in Jenin, they will finish it in all of the West Bank.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday the West Bank military operation, dubbed “Iron Wall,” represents “a shift in security strategy” that took lessons from the Gaza campaign.