5 Palestinians dead, many hurt in Israeli raid in West Bank

Smoke rising in the West Bank city of Jenin during fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants

By ILAN BEN ZION and MAJDI MOHAMMED

Associated Press

June 19, 2023 Updated 2:09 PM PT

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Israeli military forces raided a refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday, igniting the fiercest day of fighting in years and striking the city of Jenin with helicopter gunships.

At least five Palestinians were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and over 90 others were wounded, Palestinian health officials said. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group claimed three of those killed as its militants. Eight Israeli soldiers were also wounded, the army said.

The Israeli military said forces stormed into the Jenin refugee camp in the early morning to arrest two suspected militants. Palestinian militants said they ambushed Israeli armored vehicles with explosive devices, disabling several vehicles with troops trapped inside.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht described Palestinian militants’ use of powerful roadside bombs as “very unusual and dramatic.” Five mangled vehicles were stuck in the firefight for hours, and the military dispatched the helicopters as part of an elaborate evacuation operation, the Israeli military said.

It was the first such use of a helicopter gunship in the West Bank since the second Palestinian uprising some two decades ago, Israeli media reported. The Jenin refugee camp, long a militant stronghold, witnessed some of the biggest battles at the time.

At least one Apache helicopter fired missiles at Palestinian gunmen to try to clear the area while security forces worked to extract the trapped vehicles, the Israeli army said. The local branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad based in Jenin said its fighters opened fire at the combat helicopter. The group praised the militants and warned Israel to “reconsider its calculations before its soldiers set foot on Jenin’s land.”

The Israeli army said that the Palestinian gunfire caused minor damage to the spinning tail rotor of a helicopter.

Witnesses described the nearly 10 hours of fighting as a bedlam of gunfire and explosions.

“They were shooting at anything and everything that moved,” hospital director Tawfik al Shobaki said of Israeli forces.

A Palestinian cameraman, Hazem Nasser, wearing a clearly marked press vest, was seriously wounded. His colleagues said he was shot when a building — where journalists had camped out to cover the clashes — came under Israeli fire.

“Of course there was a lot of shooting and explosions, but everyone knew we were journalists covering it,” said fellow freelance journalist Alaa Badarneh. “All of a sudden we were surrounded, and the army started shooting at us.”

An Associated Press journalist at the scene said that he saw the military shoot directly at Nasser.

When asked about the shooting, the Israeli military said it was “unaware of fire aimed at medics and journalists” and was looking into the incident.

Last year, prominent Palestinian American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid into the Jenin refugee camp. The army has said Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire.

The Israeli military said eight members of the paramilitary border police and the army suffered light and moderate wounds. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited wounded troops in the hospital and said said Israel was “striking terror with strength and determination.”

Hussein Shekh, a senior Palestinian official, accused Israel of waging “a fierce and open war” against the Palestinian people.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called Israel’s “continued escalation against the Palestinians,” saying it only further inflamed the situation and undermined efforts to reduce regional tensions.

Later on Monday, the Israeli military said that two suspected Palestinian assailants rammed their car into troops manning a checkpoint near Jenin, lightly wounding two soldiers. Israeli forces opened fire at the vehicle, wounding the two Palestinians, health officials said. One of the men was in critical condition.

Israel and the Palestinians have been gripped by months of violence, focused mainly in the West Bank, where some 124 Palestinians have been killed this year.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast War, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.

Israel has been staging near-nightly raids in the West Bank in response to a spasm of Palestinian violence early last year. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have surged during that time.

Israel says most of the dead have been militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed at least 20 people this year.