Gun battles in West Bank started as Israel launched a massive operation in the Jenin camp.
The main route heading north into Jenin would usually be teeming with traffic, but it is now extremely quiet.
Along the road, we have passed piles of ashes from fires that were started by local Palestinians, protesting against the Israeli military raid early this morning, BBC reported.
We came across just a few municipal workers clearing away the remains of burnt tyres.
🇵🇸Palestine today pic.twitter.com/hmMuilbckT
— Aya Isleem 🇵🇸 #Gaza (@AyaIsleemEn) July 3, 2023
Shops and businesses across the city – home to some 50,000 people – are shuttered because of a general strike. Virtually nobody is on the streets, and there are just the occasional squeals of ambulances and the loud hum of Israeli military drones, which is more familiar from conflicts I have reported on in the Gaza Strip.
Large plumes of dark smoke can be seen rising ominously over the Jenin camp. We watch as a few Israeli military jeeps whizz by. Young Palestinian men hurl stones at them and are promptly fired at.
Palestinian president to chair urgent meeting
BBC correspondent Rushdi Abu Alouf reporting from Gaza City said that Palestine TV is reporting that President Mahmoud Abbas will chair an urgent meeting of the leadership this evening, to discuss the ongoing occupation and aggression against Jenin and its camp.
We’ll bring you more detail on that as soon we have it.
What is the Jenin camp?
In short, it’s a refugee camp in the city of Jenin, which is located in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The Jenin camp has been around since the early 1950s and was set up for Palestinians displaced during the 1948-49 war, which surrounded Israel’s creation.
The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, says it’s currently home to some 14,000 people, who live in an area of only 0.42 sq km (0.16 sq miles).
The camp was severely affected by the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In April 2002, Israeli forces launched a full-scale incursion – known as the Battle of Jenin – in which at least 52 Palestinian militants and civilians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. The 10-day operation followed a campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, many of which involved perpetrators from the city.
Israel has launched a massive operation on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. 2 Palestinians reported killed. Israel launched airstrikes said they have hit a “joint operations centre” and called Jenin “an active combat area pic.twitter.com/pPbozLK9Lm
— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) July 3, 2023
In the past year, Jenin and the camp have seen repeated Israeli military raids and local Palestinians have been linked to multiple shooting attacks targeting Israelis.
