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At least 10 killed, dozens injured in Israeli raid on Jenin in West Bank

Israeli forces conduct a search of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance at a road block Wednesday amid a major military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin in which at 10 Palestinians have been killed and as many as 40 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Photo by Alaa Badarneh/EPA-EFE
Israeli forces conduct a search of a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance at a road block Wednesday amid a major military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin in which at 10 Palestinians have been killed and as many as 40 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Photo by Alaa Badarneh/EPA-EFE

Jan. 22 (UPI) -- A major Israeli "anti-terror" operation in the West Bank city of Jenin killed at least 10 Palestinians and injured as many as 40 others, Palestinian officials said.

Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that a joint operation with other security branches had successfully targeted "more than 10 terrorists," conducted "aerial strikes on terror infrastructure sites" and that many explosives planted on routes into the city had been removed.

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It stressed that the operation was ongoing.

Israeli warplanes struck targets ahead of the start of the incursion Tuesday by a significant contingent of troops supported by armored bulldozers, helicopters and drones into Jenin and its refugee camp in the west of the city.

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority said Israeli forces "opened fire on civilians" and its security forces, "resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel, one of whom is in critical condition."

Al Jazeera carried reports of doctors, nurses and patients of the city's hospital being injured and of people left without medical care after ambulances were blocked from entering.

Naming nine of those killed on its Facebook page, the Palestinian Health Ministry said they ranged in age from 16 to 57 years.

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The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said in a post on X that the Security Cabinet had ordered the IDF, the Israeli Security Agency and the Israel Police to execute an "extensive and significant military operation to defeat terrorism" there.

The operation -- dubbed Iron Wall -- was, it said, an "additional step in achieving the objective we have set: bolstering security in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]."

"We are acting methodically and with determination against the Iranian axis wherever it reaches: in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Judea and Samaria -- and we are still active."

The Israeli military mounted a nine-day "anti-terror" operation in Jenin and the refugee camp in late August and early September, said to be one of the largest in the past two decades, in which at least 36 Palestinians were killed, according the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and while armed groups claimed most of the dead, children and elderly people were among those killed.

During mopping up operations against pockets of resistance in Qabatiya village, near Jenin, in which a local commander and "six other terrorists" were killed, video emerged that appeared to show Israeli troops tossing bodies from the roof of a building in contravention of international law.

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The Israeli military announced a major investigation into the incident which was filmed by residents of Qabatiya and witnessed by an Associated Press reporter.

There was no evidence at that time that any of those killed in the anti-terror operation in Qabatiya were those in the video as their identities and cause of death were not yet known.

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