Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
On January 21, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel's latest operation was aimed at "eradicating terrorism" and that it would be "extensive and significant." The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has launched "Iron Wall", a large-scale military raid in Jenin that has killed 12 Palestinians and injured 40 others.
Jenin is in the West Bank, which came under Israeli occupation in 1967. In 2017, Jenin had a population of about 50,000 people, while the Jenin refugee camp had a population of about 10,000, housing Palestinians who were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine War.
Jenin has been severely damaged during the Israeli war on Gaza. By June 2024 repeated bombing attacks and incursions with bulldozers by IDF had destroyed every street and left every public square a pile of rubble. The governor of Jenin said, "The Israelis are besieging the hospitals and cutting off the city from the refugee camp, which has become a military zone with no access...neither the civil defense, nor the ambulances, nor the journalists can go and see what is happening there."
On January 22, as some of the IDF withdrew from Gaza, the Israeli military said it was carrying out an operation in Jenin. The city has for decades been a center for armed resistance, and a target of raids by the IDF. A spokeswoman for the IDF said that 10 militants had been "hit" during the operation in Jenin. Earlier, Israel said that it had killed eight militants since the start of the raid.
Recently, the IDF has burned Palestinian homes, used heavy machinery to demolish more homes, arrested dozens of Palestinians, and transferred them to interrogation centers, known for human rights abuses.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Hamas has been attracting the young men in Jenin, who view armed resistance to occupation as the only way to confront Israel, which is never held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Other West Bank cities were also targeted in raids, with at least 25 Palestinians across the West Bank arrested since January 21.
Since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank has been losing support to factions like Hamas that favor armed struggle and are actively fighting Israel, according to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
The PA is the governing body in some areas of the occupied West Bank. In December, its security forces began cracking down on militants in and around Jenin, where the authority has lost control.
In the Occupied West Bank, it is the IDF that controls security, with the PA handling some local matters, including trash collection, education, hospitals, and schools and has its police who coordinate with their Israeli counterparts but have limited authority.
While the IDF raids are carried out, deadly attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank have escalated. Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are both extremist settlers and have emboldened the illegal settlers with a cloak of official sanctioning of brutality. Following the Gaza ceasefire, settlers have been attacking Palestinian villages and stoning vehicles, injuring several Palestinians. Houses and cars have been set on fire.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said in a speech on January 21, that the IDF had killed 794 militants in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began. "In most cases, we thwarted the threat in advance before the terrorists could reach Israeli citizens," he said.
Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the West Bank.
Gaza Ceasefire
The Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza is in stage one, and four more Israeli female hostages were released on Saturday. The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner released on Saturday, in the prisoners swap between Israel and Hamas, was Raed Al-Saadi, a 49-year-old from Jenin who was detained on August 28, 1989. He was sentenced to two life sentences in prison for carrying out attacks during the First Intifada.
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