The Israeli army withdrew from the city of Jenin and its refugee camp on Friday after a 10-day operation that left 36 dead across the occupied West Bank, witnesses said.
After days of destructive incursions by soldiers backed by armored vehicles and bulldozers, residents who had earlier fled began returning to their homes in the camp, a bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel, AFP journalists said.
On August 28, the army launched a military operation in several cities and towns of the northern West Bank, including Jenin.
It said in a statement on Friday that Israeli forces “have been conducting counterterrorism activity in the area of Jenin” without confirming a withdrawal.
“Israeli security forces are continuing to act in order to achieve the objectives of the counterterrorism operation,” the statement said.
Over the course of the operation in Jenin, Israeli forces killed 14 militants, arrested 30 suspects, dismantled “approximately 30 explosives planted under roads,” and conducted four aerial strikes, the statement said.
One Israeli soldier was killed in Jenin, where most of the Palestinian fatalities have occurred.
Hamas, whose October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war in Gaza, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have said at least 14 of the dead were militants.
Aziz Taleb, a 48-year-old father of seven, returned to his family home of 20 years to find soldiers had raided it.
“Thank God (the children) left the day before. They went to stay with our neighbours here,” he said as he surveyed the damage, glass crunching under his feet.
‘We Didn’t Want to Leave’
Imra Itisadeh, a 60-year-old Jenin resident, returned to her house in the camp on Friday to find one of its walls partly collapsed and rubble on her car.
“At first, we didn’t want to leave. Later, (the army) pressured us, and we had to leave our homes. I left with my husband” on foot, she said, adding that she suffers from high blood pressure and heart trouble.
Two of Itisadeh’s children remained in the house with their families and soon ran low on nappies, milk, and water.
“It’s very difficult, and we are suffering greatly in the camp,” Itisadeh told AFP.
Many homes in the Jenin camp were damaged or destroyed by army bulldozers and pavement was stripped from the roads.
Residents used bulldozers of their own to begin clearing the rubble on Friday after Israeli armored vehicles left, AFP journalists reported.
The early trickle of returning residents soon turned into a flood, and soon children were playing in the streets.
Hundreds of camp residents attended funerals of those killed during the operation, carrying bodies in processions punctuated by chants and gunfire.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities, but the latest raids, as well as hawkish comments by Israeli officials, signaled an escalation, residents said.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, said in a post on X on Friday that he had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make the defeat of Hamas “and other terrorist organisations” in the West Bank one of the aims of the war in Gaza.
Since the war began on October 7, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 661 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the territory during the same period, according to Israeli officials.