West Bank city 'cut off from the world' as Israel raid drags on

Concrete slabs and sheet metal were piled high alongside streets in Jenin on Saturday, as residents assessed the damage from Israel's latest West Bank raid even as explosions persisted nearby.

The scars of ongoing clashes in the occupied Palestinian territory, which began on Wednesday as part of what Israel has described as a counter-terrorism operation, were everywhere: collapsed walls, uprooted trees, tiled roofs covering mounds of rubble.

Bulldozers rumbled through the streets on the first day of the raid, clearing the way for Israeli soldiers while tearing up the asphalt and piercing underground pipes, residents of one neighbourhood in east Jenin told AFP.

Three days later, with fighting elsewhere in the city continuing, "we are cut off from the world", Taher al-Saadi said.

"The water is cut off. The electricity is cut off, the sewage system is no longer working. All the infrastructure is destroyed, we no longer have any services that work."

He added: "The bakeries are at a standstill. We can't find milk for the children."

Israel raids are not unusual in Jenin, whose refugee camp is a bastion for armed groups fighting Israel.

But the operation launched on Wednesday was unusually large and long, hitting multiple West Bank cities at once and, in Jenin, showing no sign of letting up.

"I think it's the worst day since the start of the raid," Wisam Bakr, director of Jenin Government Hospital, said on Saturday.

"We hear from time to time clashes and sometimes there is big bombing."

- 'Dark days' -

Not far from where Faiza Abu Jaafar lives, an 82-year-old man was shot dead on Friday by an Israeli sniper, residents say, bringing to 20 the number of Palestinians killed in the operation so far.

Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of the dead were members of their armed wings.

While Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers left the area near her home on Saturday morning, apparently heading for Jenin's refugee camp, Abu Jaafar said she and her relatives were still shaken.

"It's very hard, for the children and for everyone. We are afraid, we are terrified, look at all the damage," she said, standing amid piles of rubble.

"We are living in dark days."

Just how dark is still unclear, as Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP that even he does not know exactly what is happening inside the camp, where the latest fighting appeared to be concentrated.

"The Israelis are besieging the hospitals and cutting off the city from the refugee camp, which has become a military zone with no access," he said.

"Neither the civil defence, nor the ambulances, nor the journalists can go and see what is happening there."

The Israeli army has denied cutting off access to hospitals, saying it has positioned its forces to prevent militants from gathering in them while allowing ambulances to come and go.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said the forces involved in the current raid, which began on Wednesday, were fewer than the number who carried out a large-scale raid in July 2023 that left 13 dead.

Yet Abu al-Rub, the Jenin governor, said the latest operation made him think of a notorious 2002 battle in Jenin that left dozens of Palestinians and Israelis dead.

Earlier this week, Shoshani explicitly rejected the comparison, saying the ongoing operation in the West Bank was not "extremely different" from regular activity.