When Is A 'Refugee Camp' A Modern City and a Terrorist Redoubt?

Smoke billowing over Jenin during IDF counterterrorism operation

(Photo: AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

"The Palestinian belligerents, likely shocked by the aerial strikes and the rapid entry of IDF ground forces, have fled -- gone into hiding, avoiding confrontations with IDF forces while lurking inside the houses and alleys of the refugee camp. Forces will likely employ some creative ruse to compel the terrorists to reveal themselves and increase the number of casualties among them."

"Such a move would carry a much greater risk for the IDF, Shin Bet and Border Police fighters operating in the camp. The intensification of friction poses a dangerous threat to both sides, and this must also be taken into account because any escalation could shift the ongoing offensive from a net plus to a negative."

YNet News

IDF soldiers take up a defensive position in the Jenin refugee camp on July 4, 2023 during a large-scale IDF operation in the area. (photo credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)

 

Palestinian terrorists will not be dissuaded from their mission to murder Jews in Israel. One attack after another taking place in Israel and celebrated by Palestinians as another notch in their goal to enact acts of terror inspired by their exposure from cradle to grave by Palestinian leaders that it is their duty as loyal Palestinians determined to rout Jews from the ancient Judaean land in a reborn Israel to free it for their own aspirations to establish a Palestinian state. The fiction the West is so fond of, that reason will prevail and a peace agreement between the antagonists will lead to a two-state solution is a fantasy.

But it is a fantasy held dear to the hearts of Western democracies that don't have to deal day-by-day with the constant threat of terrorist acts from their neighbours. Neighbours who are encouraged by the West through their charitable funding of the Palestinian Authority for whom it remains a sacred duty to not only incentivize its citizens to become terrorists, but to reward them financially when they do, whether or not they succeed in their killing missions.

The irony is that the Palestinians convince the world at large that they are victims of an Israel that threatens to obliterate them. Israel thus becomes the aggressor when it defends itself and its citizens from the depredations of a hostile, death-delivering Palestinian horde that never tires of celebrating its intentions to destroy Israel. Photographs of children being indoctrinated into a lifelong mission of 'resistance' against 'occupation' fail to convince the West that the Palestinian leadership is at fault, nor does the fact that terrorists are rewarded and memorialized as heroes.

When Israel finally determines it is time to respond to violent provocations, the foreign press speak of 'Palestinian militants', never of terrorists, and emphasize the death of Palestinians, cautioning Israel's defence forces and its government that the world is watching -- and judging. Sympathy goes to the grieving families of Palestinian 'fighters', trained in strategic guerilla tactics aimed directly at Israeli civilians. Now, Israel has launched another raid in the city that calls itself a 'refugee camp' to root out the 'militias' plotting Israel's destruction.

With the IDF strike force of 2,000 soldiers there were targeted drone strikes in Jenin along with the ground forces. In the northern West Bank (occupied by Palestinians) Jenin is a densely populated city, used as a base by groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad; one of the most volatile areas of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli army launched a drone strike on a command centre in Jenin, then sent in troops and bulldozers. Operated by the Jenin Brigades, a unit formed of various Palestinian terror groups, the building was one of the targets.

The focus was on finding and confiscating or destroying weapons. "We're acting against specific targets. We're not planning to hold ground", explained Lt.Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military. Israel's government has faced intense pressure from Israelis for a tougher reaction on terrorist groups embedded in Jenin from which numerous deadly attacks on Israelis have been launched. The ember that finally launched the fire of response was the killing of four Israelis in the settlement of Eli, in the Palestinian-occupied West Bank.

In the IDF action, the largest in decades, there was purpose: multiple streets were blown up or chopped, depending on whether they had been bulldozed or set off by the IDF’s bomb squads while other streets nearby remained untouched. The IDF was targeting roads with explosives dug into place beneath them.

IDF soldier stands in the Jenin refugee camp during a large scale operation on July 4, 2023. (credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)

 

Aerial photographs were released of what the Israeli army called an "advanced observation and reconnaissance centre" targeted by drones early on Monday. An apartment building in the centre of Jenin was used by the terrorists to warn one another of approaching Israeli military forces. Also targeted was a "weapons production facility" and an "explosive device storage facility". Jenin is now known to have surpassed Nablus as the centre of Palestinian terrorist activity.

The goal of this raid was obvious enough; to stop terrorist Palestinian groups from planning and launching attacks on civilians in Israeli cities, such as Tel Aviv, as well as Jewish settlements in the Palestinian-occupied West Bank. Yet no one in authority in Israel can be under the illusion that the terrorists, now in hiding, will not emerge in their numbers, once the IDF has withdrawn its forces, to resume their Israel-targeting activities. A relative handful of the terrorists were eliminated in this raid.

 

Mosque in Jenin which was used to remotely detonate the explosive devices against the Panther IDF vehicle earlier this month (YONAH JEREMY BOB).

In the Palestinian Islamic Jihad-associated Al-Ansar Mosque, empty of worshipers, the door was blown off its hinges to enable IDF entry. From a window on the ground floor there is a window from which terrorists used remote surveillance last month of an IDF Panther vehicle, ambushed by an explosive device under one of the streets, taking IDF forces by surprise into a battle where the Palestinians had the tactical advantage

Within the mosque itself Israeli forces found explosives and weapons, and it became the site of a lengthy firefight on Monday though it doesn't appear to have suffered any damage other than to the door. 

The IDF summed up that it had carried out an airstrike against a joint war room shared by various armed groups in the city including the so-called Jenin Battalion, which "served as an observation post, a gathering place for armed terrorists before and after terror acts, a cache for munitions and bombs and a communications center." 

This is not the first time. It will not be the last time.