Israeli bulldozers tear up a street during an Israeli raid in the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 2, 2024. (By AFP)

Jenin, September 7 (RHC)-- The Israeli military says its "military operation" in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, which began 10 days ago, is still ongoing after some reports said the regime’s forces were withdrawing.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday its “troops are continuing with the operation until its objectives are achieved”, without specifying those goals.  The statement claimed that the Israeli troops killed 14 Palestinian fighters in Jenin in the past 10 days, including Wissam Hazem, whom it identified as the commander of Hamas in the city, and arrested more than 30 “suspects.”  It also claimed to have destroyed “over 30 explosive devices planted under roads in the city.”  

The Israeli military’s raid on Jenin and its refugee camp killed at least 21 people, including elderly people and children, and cut off water, power and sewage lines.

That statement came while media reports cited eyewitnesses as saying that the Israeli forces withdrew from the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm and their camps in the northern West Bank, leaving a trail of destruction and deaths.

Videos have been shared on social media showing the detention of women, children and men in Jenin in a humiliating way as they were forced to walk in one line.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) described the past week as “the deadliest for Palestinian civilians in the West Bank since November last year.”  “As the war rages in Gaza, violence and destruction in the West Bank increase by the hour,” it said in a post on social media platform X on Thursday, adding “This is unacceptable. It must stop now.”

However, Israeli hawkish minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Friday that he has requested that the regime’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu include the defeat of Hamas in the occupied West Bank among the goals of the genocidal war in Gaza to avoid the repetition of the October 7th operation.

“We must not repeat the mistakes, war on Hamas – also in Judea and Samaria!” he said in the post, which was accompanied by a copy of a formal letter, using the Israeli name for the West Bank.

Since the start of Israel’s aggression on Gaza, the West Bank has also seen a rise in violence from Israeli forces and settlers that claimed the lives of hundreds of Palestinians.

The Israeli army launched its largest incursion into the northern West Bank in two decades on August 28, killing dozens of Palestinians.  According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 691 Palestinians were killed and more than 5,700 others injured by Israeli army fire since October 7th last year.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 40,878 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 94,454 others.  Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

[ SOURCE:  PRESS TV ]