Israel blows up buildings in West Bank refugee camp
RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM—The Israeli military blew up buildings in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Sunday in an operation that the Palestinian state news agency said leveled around 20 buildings.
Footage capturing the demolitions showed a series of simultaneous explosions in the densely populated camp.
Thick clouds of smoke rose above the Palestinian city where Israeli forces have been conducting a major military operation for nearly two weeks that the military says targets Palestinian militant fighters and the seizure of weapons stockpiles.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a statement urged the United States to end Israel’s military operation and requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council “to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.”
The Israeli military said 23 structures had been “dismantled” in the northern West Bank after explosives laboratories, weapons and observation posts were uncovered.
In a previous statement on Sunday the military shared images of firearms, ammunition, and what appeared to be gas canisters. It did not say where exactly those images were taken.
Jenin Government Hospital Director Wisam Baker told the Palestinian state news agency that part of the hospital was damaged in the explosions but that there had been no casualties.
Jenin is home to a crowded refugee camp of descendants of Palestinians who were driven out, or fled their homes, in the 1948 war when the state of Israel was established.
Militant center
The refugee camp there has been a center of militant activity for decades and the target of repeated raids by Israeli security forces.
Israeli forces, backed by helicopters and armored bulldozers, began the assault on the city on Jan. 21, two days after a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and the militant group Hamas took effect.
Israel regards the West Bank as part of a multifront war against Iranian-backed groups, from Gaza to Lebanon and including the Houthis in Yemen.
