Palestinian families return to rubble in Jenin refugee camp - BBC

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By Eman Eriqat & Alaa Daraghmeh

BBC Arabic

"We had to flee. Or my daughters and I would have been killed," Fatina al-Ghoul says, weeping as she looks back at a pile of rubble that was once her home.

A bulldozer has already arrived and is clearing up debris from her street, which has been left in ruins.

She and nine other women, her family and neighbours, fled their homes in Jenin's refugee camp during one of the largest Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank in years.

Fatina's family is one of hundreds now returning to what's left of their homes, decimated by drone strikes and fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and armed Palestinians.

• Palestinians fear escalation after Jenin assault

The IDF described it as a "counter-terrorism operation", saying they were targeting weapons stores and manufacturing facilities belonging to militant groups in the area.

But the Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the operation as "open war against the people of Jenin".

Hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drone strikes entered Jenin refugee camp - where almost 24,000 people live in an area of less than half a square kilometre - on Monday morning, triggering intense gun battles with armed Palestinians inside.

Palestinian health officials said 12 Palestinians were killed over the next two days, including four children, and that more than 100 others were injured. The Israeli military said one of its soldiers was killed as its forces started to withdraw on Tuesday night.

"My house has been completely destroyed. Everything is broken and burned. It's all damaged," Fatina says.

Several local hospitals also told the BBC that they were struggling to cope with the fallout from the fighting.

Thousands of locals also took to the streets on Wednesday for the funerals of those killed. So far, it has been confirmed to the BBC that eight of the dead were members of the military wings of the main Palestinian factions.

Guns were fired in support of the deceased fighters.

Many residents say they blame the Palestinian Authority (PA), the main governing body of the Palestinians in the West Bank, for not protecting them during the operation.

Videos circulating online showed two PA representatives forced to leave a funeral after being chastised by the crowd.

Residents complained that at the beginning of the operation the PA's security forces simply allowed the Israeli military vehicles to enter the city.

Fatina says she also blames the PA for their lack of action. "This is our home. We are living in fear, and we are the only ones left to protect it."

"There are agreements between the PA and Israel. The PA has not broken the agreement and security services have done their job during the military operation according to what it was asked to do by the Palestinian leadership," Mayor of Jenin City and PA member Akram Rajoub told the BBC.

One fighter from a Palestinian militant group said that Israeli forces had successful destroyed several of its facilities, including a storage unit containing explosives.

However, the scale of the operation inside a densely populated city and refugee camp was criticised by the UN's human rights chief.

For many residents like Fatina, immediate access to drinking water, food and shelter is now critical.

"Tonight we will sleep on the streets. We can't even sit down inside the house. There is nowhere else to go, for us or any of our neighbours."

Related Topics

• Israel & the Palestinians
• Israel
• Palestinian territories
• West Bank

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2023-07-05 19:47:21Z
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Biden pushing for Ursula von der Leyen to be next Nato boss after blocking Ben Wallace - The Telegraph

Joe Biden is pushing for Ursula von der Leyen to be installed as the next Nato secretary general after Ben Wallace’s candidacy was blocked, The Telegraph can disclose.

The president of the European Commission was said to be the United States’ preferred candidate after the White House rejected the Defence Secretary for the role.

On Tuesday, Nato allies agreed a one-year extension for Jens Stoltenberg, who has been secretary general since October 2014, to lead the alliance until autumn 2024.

Nato leaders had hoped to reach a deal on a successor to Mr Stoltenberg at their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week, but have failed to agree on a candidate.

A Nato source said that the US president was attempting to convince Mrs von der Leyen, a former German defence minister, to succeed Mr Stoltenberg amid fears a suitable candidate will not emerge in the next 12 months.

“We’re going to have a problem next year when it becomes clear that the field is no stronger than this year,” a second source said.

Mr Biden and Mrs von der Leyen have built “a strong bond” in recent years, fostering close transatlantic ties over China, Ukraine and the climate, another source said.

Ben Wallace was said to have been a favourite with a number of Nato member states Credit: Reuters/Anna Gordon

She was said to now “rely on Washington for intelligence” in a shift away from information relayed to her by European agencies, which misjudged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Fluent in French, she would likely secure the support of Emmanuel Macron, who was opposed to Mr Wallace’s candidacy. 

Meanwhile, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor and a former political rival of Mrs von der Leyen, would like to see her out of the frame to keep a top EU job.

Concerns, however, may arise over her recent poor handling of the German defence ministry, which she led between 2013 and 2019. 

In 2015, it was reported that German soldiers had to replace heavy machine guns with broomsticks during a Nato exercise, to hide their lack of equipment.

The European Commission president has previously said it was an honour to be included on a list of potential successors. However, her spokesman said she was “not available for the job, be it now or in the future”.

In private talks, Mrs von der Leyen reportedly told Mr Biden she would not be available to take over any role at Nato until at least next year.

White House strategists see a window opening up to poach her after next year’s European elections.

Nato expansion since 1997

Nato’s expansion since 1997

Mrs von der Leyen is expected to be a frontrunner for EU leaders to retain her role as the bloc’s most senior official in charge of the Commission.

However, there are doubts over whether she would also be able to command support from the European Parliament, with Right-wing MEPs, who oppose her green policies, set to form an alliance.

“It brings the Nato job into the discussions over Europe’s other top jobs,” a source said.

Last week, Mr Stoltenberg said he was “not seeking an extension” having already delayed his departure to provide stability for the alliance amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He will remain in post until October 2024, meaning he will have served as Nato’s secretary general for a decade by the time he is due to stand down.

There is no official procedure for appointing the military alliance’s top official. Its 31 member states must hold discussions over potential candidates until a consensus is reached.

Mr Wallace dropped out of the race to replace Mr Stoltenberg last month after his candidacy was opposed by the White House and France, which wants a leader from the European Union to fill the role.

Wallace support for Ukraine an issue

The Defence Secretary was said to have been a favourite with a number of Nato member states, but there were significant tensions with Washington, the alliance’s de facto leader, over his unprecedented support for Ukraine.

He has often gone further in his military backing for Kyiv, including on tanks and long-range cruise missiles, than the US.

Other Nato allies favoured a prime minister or head of state to replace Mr Stoltenberg, while others still had pushed for a female candidate.

Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, emerged as the potential frontrunner to take up the role after a recent meeting with Mr Biden at the White House.

However, she ruled herself out of contention when member states raised concerns over the possibility of having a third consecutive Scandinavian leader of Nato.

Turkey was also expected to oppose the Danish prime minister after copies of the Koran and Turkish flags were set alight in Copenhagen last week.

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2023-07-04 19:49:00Z
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Russia has lost half its combat capability in Ukraine, says UK armed forces chief - Financial Times

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2023-07-04 17:11:29Z
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Jenin: Israeli forces start withdrawal after two-day operation - BBC

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By David Gritten

BBC News

Israeli forces have started withdrawing from Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, a defence source says.

This ends a major two-day operation in which 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed.

Gunfire and explosions could be across Jenin as the news emerged. Around this time, health officials reported the fatal shooting of a Palestinian man.

Later on Tuesday evening, an Israeli soldier was killed by "live fire" in the camp, the Israeli army said.

Earlier, Palestinian militant groups said a car-ramming and stabbing attack in Israel was a response to the raid.

Israeli authorities said seven people were injured on a busy shopping street in Tel Aviv and that the attacker was a Palestinian man from the West Bank.

Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: "Whoever thinks that such an attack will deter us from continuing our fight against terrorism is mistaken."

He also confirmed that Israeli forces were "completing the mission" in Jenin, but warned that it would not be a "one-time action".

Palestinian leaders accused Israel of mounting an "invasion".

• Seven injured in Tel Aviv car-ramming attack
• Israel's Jenin operation reignites Palestinian anger

The Israeli military launched its operation in Jenin refugee camp early on Monday with a drone strike that it said targeted a joint command centre of the Jenin Brigades - a unit made up of different militant groups, including Hamas.

Drones carried out further air strikes as hundreds of troops entered the camp and engaged in intense gun battles with armed Palestinians inside the camp.

The military said the "counter-terrorism operation" was focused on seizing weapons and "breaking the safe haven mindset of the camp".

EPA

At a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the UN's humanitarian office said it was "alarmed at the scale of air and ground operations that are taking place in Jenin and continuing today in the West Bank, and especially [the] air strikes hitting a densely populated refugee camp".

She said the Palestinian health ministry had confirmed that three children - two 17-year-old boys and a 16-year-old boy - were among those killed, and warned that damage to infrastructure meant most of the camp now had no drinking water or electricity.

The World Health Organization said Palestinian ambulance crews had been prevented from entering parts of the camp, including to reach people who were critically injured. The health ministry has said more than 100 Palestinians have been injured, 20 of them critically.

A Palestinian Red Crescent official said about 3,000 Palestinians, including many sick and elderly, were allowed overnight to flee the drone strikes and gun battles between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians.

A man in a wheelchair who was escorted out of the camp with his family in the morning told the BBC that they had been held in a room by Israeli troops.

"We were encircled by a military barricade. Israeli soldiers came. Now we just went out. There were no people left in the camp. We were the only ones."

He added: "It's been a very difficult situation. The drone was shooting at us. Now we've just left. And we're all tired. We've had no food... No drink."

Outside a hospital in the nearby city centre, Palestinians protesters threw stones at an Israeli military vehicle, prompting it to fire tear gas in response.

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières complained that paramedics had been forced to proceed on foot because Israeli military bulldozers had destroyed many roads, stripping them of tarmac.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that no non-combatants had been killed during the operation.

He also said he had seen ambulances driving freely inside the camp during the day, adding: "We are assisting those ambulances to evacuate the wounded."

The admiral said bulldozers had dug up about 2km (1.2 miles) of roads inside the camp along which militants had concealed explosive devices, putting civilians and troops at risk.

Reuters

Jenin has become a stronghold of a new generation of Palestinian militants who have become deeply frustrated by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority's aging leadership and the restrictions of the Israeli occupation.

The city has seen repeated Israeli military raids in the past year as local Palestinians have carried out deadly attacks on Israelis. Other Palestinian attackers have hidden there.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh rejected statements from foreign governments saying that Israel had the right to defend itself.

"Israel is internationally recognised as the occupying power over our land and people," he tweeted. "[It] should be condemned for its use of force to destroy the camp's infrastructure, facilities, and homes, and to kill, arrest, and displace innocent people."

"It is the Palestinian people that have the right to self-defence. There is no such right for an occupying power," he added.

Related Topics

• Israel & the Palestinians
• Israel
• Palestinian territories
• United Nations
• West Bank

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2023-07-04 21:20:24Z
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Jenin: Israeli military launches major operation in West Bank city - bbc.com

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By Yolande Knell & David Gritten

BBC News, in Jenin & London

There have been intense exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and armed Palestinian militants in Jenin refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military began what appears to be one of its most extensive operations in the territory in years with drone strikes early on Monday.

Nine Palestinians have been killed and 100 injured, health officials say.

Israel said it was putting a stop to Jenin being "a refuge for terrorism". Palestinians accused it of a war crime.

The Israeli military said there was no specific timeline for ending the operation, but that it could be "a matter of hours or a few days".

Jenin has become a stronghold of a new generation of Palestinian militants who have become deeply frustrated by the Palestinian Authority's aging leadership and the restrictions of the Israeli occupation.

The city has seen repeated Israeli military raids in the past year as local Palestinians have carried out deadly attacks on Israelis. Other Palestinian attackers have hidden there.

In 2002, during the second Palestinian intifada, Israeli forces launched a full-scale incursion in Jenin. At least 52 Palestinian militants and civilians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed during 10 days of intense fighting.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers were still operating inside Jenin on Monday night, more than 20 hours after the operation began.

As well as the hum of drones overhead, regular bursts of gunfire and the loud thuds of explosions came throughout the day from the densely populated refugee camp, which is home to some 18,000 people and is now declared a closed Israeli military zone.

Acrid smoke from burning tyres lit during protests also hung in the air above the city centre. A few young Palestinians were out on the streets, standing close to shuttered shops and staring nervously in the direction of the camp.

The Israeli military has cut off telephone communications and the electricity supply to the camp, making it difficult to get an accurate picture of what is happening. Palestinian medics have also been struggling to reach the dozens of injured there.

At the Palestinian hospital by the main entrance to the camp the mood was grim.

One man told the BBC: "I met my brother's friend. I went up to him and had barely said a few words when he dropped on the ground. I went to run away, then I got hit by two bullets."

Another man said there was a "massacre" in the camp.

"There are children and civilians and they're not letting them out," he added. "Our electricity is cut, they have dug up all our roads. The camp will be destroyed."

Jovana Arsenijevic of the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières told the BBC she was at a hospital that had seen more than 90 patients wounded by gunfire or shrapnel from explosive devices.

The Israeli military said it was acting on precise intelligence and did not to seek to harm civilians, but many have been caught in the crossfire.

The military allowed about 500 Palestinian families to leave the camp on Monday night. Some raised their hands or waved makeshift white flags in a gesture of surrender.

People told the BBC that some men and teenaged boys had been stopped by soldiers, and kept behind.

Reuters

The first drone strike overnight targeted an apartment that the military said was being used as a hideout for Palestinians who had attacked Israelis and as a "joint operational command centre" for the Jenin Brigades - a unit made up of different Palestinian militant groups including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Drones were used for further air strikes and a brigade-size force of troops was deployed in what a military spokesman described as a "counter-terrorism operation" focused on seizing weapons and breaking "the safe haven mindset of the camp, which has become a hornet's nest".

In the past year and a half, Palestinians behind some 50 attacks targeting Israelis have come from Jenin, according to the military.

As armed Palestinians began fighting back from inside the camp, the Jenin Brigades said: "We will fight the occupation [Israeli] forces until the last breath and bullet, and we work together and unified from all factions and military formations."

The Palestinian health ministry said nine Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including three in the overnight drone strike. They all appeared to be young men or in their late teens - some confirmed as belonging to armed groups.

The ministry warned that the death toll might rise because 20 of the injured were in a critical condition.

Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during a related protest near the West Bank city of Ramallah, it added.

The Israeli military said the Palestinians killed in Jenin were affiliated to militant groups.

Troops had also apprehended some 50 militants during the operation, and seized weapons and ammunition, it added.

On Monday evening, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised its forces for entering what he called the "nest of terrorists" and asserted that they were doing so "with minimal injury to civilians".

"We will continue this action as long as necessary in order to restore quiet and security," he added.

There was a furious response to the operation from the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh.

"What's going on is an attempt to erase the refugee camp completely and displace the residents," he said.

Neighbouring Jordan said the operation was "a clear violation of international humanitarian law", but the US expressed its support for what it called "Israel's security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups".

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the plan was not to expand the military operation outside Jenin, but already Palestinian protests have reached the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip. And the longer this action goes on in Jenin, the greater the risk of another dangerous, wider escalation.

EPA

There has been a surge of violence in the West Bank in recent months.

On 20 June, seven Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid in Jenin which saw the military's first use of an attack helicopter in the West Bank in years.

The next day, two Hamas gunmen shot dead four Israelis near the settlement of Eli, 40km (25 miles) to the south.

A Palestinian man was later shot dead during a rampage by hundreds of settlers in the nearby town of Turmusaya.

That week also saw three Palestinian militants from Jenin killed in a rare Israeli drone strike.

Since the start of the year, more than 140 Palestinians - both militants and civilians - have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, while another 36 have been killed in the Gaza Strip.

Twenty-four Israelis, two foreigners and a Palestinian worker have been killed in attacks or apparent attacks by Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank. All were civilians except one off-duty serving soldier and a member of the Israeli security forces.

Additional reporting by Rushdi Abu Alouf in Gaza City and Robert Greenall in London

Related Topics

• Israel & the Palestinians
• Israel
• Palestinian territories
• West Bank

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2023-07-03 22:15:31Z
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