Tel Aviv, July 5, (dpa/GNA) – Israel’s military has officially ended its operation in the city of Jenin in the West Bank, two days after they began the incursion with a series of airstrikes.
The army told dpa on Wednesday that all its soldiers have been withdrawn, and the military is now returning to its “routine activities” in the West Bank.
Around 1,000 Israeli soldiers had entered Jenin on Monday, in the largest military operation in the occupied West Bank in two decades.
At least 12 Palestinians died, and more than 100 others were injured in the offensive.
One Israeli soldier was killed by gunfire, the military said shortly after midnight, without providing further details.
Fierce firefights had been reported on Tuesday, and videos posted on social media showed a convoy of military vehicles being pelted with fireworks in the city.
As the soldiers departed Jenin, a car-ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv left at least seven people wounded. Unconfirmed Israeli media reports said one of the injured lost her unborn child.
The Islamist Hamas movement described the rampage as a “first response” to the military operation in Jenin. A bystander shot and killed the Palestinian attacker.
Israel launched its Jenin operation in the early hours of Monday using drone strikes. Ground forces and a major raid on the refugee camp in Jenin, home to an estimated 17,000 people, followed.
The Jenin camp was settled by Palestinian refugees evicted from their homes after the 1948 war between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Several thousand residents of the camp had fled to emergency shelters on Monday. It was initially unclear when they would be able to return to their homes.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that the Jenin camp had become a “production site for terrorism” over the past two years, noting that multiple attacks on Israelis has been staged from there.
According to the army, the aim of the operation was to dismantle “terrorist infrastructure” and hunt down Palestinian militants. Several command centres, weapons depots, weapons production facilities and militant hideouts were destroyed. In addition, 30 suspects were arrested and another 300 people questioned.
Shots and explosions had been heard in Jenin throughout Tuesday evening. There was also a gunfire exchange near a hospital.
Observers were sceptical as to whether the assault would do much to quell the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Tamir Hayman, managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said the deployment may help thwart attacks for now, but that “only political action will provide stability in the long term.”
Since the beginning of the year, more than two dozen people have died in attacks by Palestinians. In the same period, around 150 Palestinians were killed in violent clashes, Israeli military operations or in their own attacks.
“At these moments we are concluding the mission,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to a military post near Jenin on Tuesday, according to media reports.
But he made it clear that the operation was “not a one-time event” and that Israel “will continue as long as necessary.”
GNA