Israel vs Palestinian Terrorism

"We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps might be required."

"This is a war in every respect, and we must win it."

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz

The IDF said Thursday that it had completed its operation in the area around Fara'a, about 15 miles south of Jenin and near the city of Tubas  washingtonpost.com

 

Hamas, in the ten-month aftermath of the terrorist group's invasion of southern Israel leading to an orgy of chaotic mass rape, mutilations, burning of families in their homes, as they entered farming villages near the border with Gaza, has called on Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up. In spirit the general population of West Bank Palestinians has done just that; according to polls that conclude the majority of West Bank Palestinians have no problems approving of the savagery of the Hamas bloodbath that left 1,200 Israelis of all ages and mostly civilian dead, while taking 250 children, women, elderly hostage.

This week Israeli forces launched a considerable operation overnight in the West Bank targeting and dispatching ten Hamas terrorists, and sealing the city of Jenin off. The Israel Defense Forces are fighting a war with Gaza's terrorist governing body, Hamas which had experienced no compunction in their decision to invade Israel and target their border Kibbutzim for a bloody massacre. In the full and certain knowledge that conducting such inhuman carnage in Israel would draw its military into Gaza to hunt down the terrorist operatives which find refuge in tunnels, choosing to sacrifice the lives of ordinary Palestinians to protect their own.

Jenin itself is a hotspot of terrorist activity, proving itself a problem that sends out deadly tendrils of death toward Israel as spontaneous new terror groups materialize, vowing  unendingly to visit death and destruction on Israel and its Jews. With the IDF battling Hezbollah in Israel's northern border, Hamas in Gaza, and the PLFP/Fatah groups in the West Bank, this is a war with many fronts conducted by the proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, aided by Qatar's funding.

 

IDF Assault on city of Jenin, June 2023   AP Photo

 

Israel's purpose in Jenin is to root out and prevent attacks; the Palestinian leadership identifies the operation to its population as a strategy to broaden the war for the purpose of expelling West Bank Palestinians from the geography to deprive them of their aspirational state. Israeli military spokesman, Lt.Col. Nadav Shoshani described "large forces" as having entered Jenin, Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp. 

There, Israeli forces eliminated a handful of terrorists in a Tulkarem airstrike, another few in Al-Faraa and similar numbers that were arrested, in raids that represent the initial stage of a larger operation in which Israeli forces confiscated weapons, ammunition and military equipment. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli forces blocked roads leading to a hospital with dirt barriers, while surrounding medical facilities in Jenin. The Palestinian penchant for using hospitals as military bases is hard to evade.

The IDF, on the other hand, gave assurance that their troops had not entered the hospital facilities, had disrupted nothing there, and the hospitals were open to people to enter or leave their premises. Forces loyal to the PA were called upon by Hamas to "join the sacred battle of our people". A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mamoud Abbas spoke of the raids as a "serious escalation", urging the U.S. to intervene.

The operations are described by Israel as a requirement in their intention to completely dismantle Hamas along with other organized Palestinian terrorist groups. Since the war's start in October of 2023, attacks on Israelis have risen.

Israeli soldiers stand near a military vehicle during an Israeli raid in Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm, in the West Bank, Aug. 29, 2024. (Reuters Photo)