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RAMALLAH, West Bank: At least 11 Palestinians have been killed during a days-long raid by Israeli soldiers in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said on Thursday, amid reports of gunfire, hundreds of arrests and restricted hospital access.
A young man died from his wounds on Thursday morning as a result of the Israeli operation in the northern West Bank city that began earlier in the week, the Palestinian health ministry said. Two other Palestinians were killed overnight, it added.
Israeli forces have searched hundreds of compounds and questioned hundreds of suspects since the operation began on Dec. 12, the military said in a statement. They dismantled six explosives laboratories, underground tunnel shafts and explosive devices, it said.
Since the start of the raid in the morning of Dec. 12, Israeli forces have arrested hundreds of citizens, with the majority of them since released, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, an advocacy group said in a statement.
Israel was not allowing ambulances to enter the camp to transport patients, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, said.
“We have six ambulances, but we cannot even reach the patients who need to be transported to the hospital, some of whom need dialysis,” Al-Saadi said.
“The army did not allow us to enter,” despite attempts to coordinate with the Red Cross and the UN Palestinian relief agency, he said, adding that soldiers were also stationed outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Four soldiers were slightly injured by controlled explosions and gunfire from Israel’s own forces, the military statement said. Soldiers occupied a mosque where sporadic shots could be heard in the distance, a video circulating on social media showed. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.
Asked about the Palestinian deaths and reports of soldiers stopping ambulances reaching the sick, the military confirmed “ongoing counterterrorism activity” in the city and said more details would be provided after the activity ended.
Before the latest operation, the Palestinian health ministry reported 275 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza on southern Israel by the Islamist movement Hamas that killed around 1,200 Israelis.
The mounting death toll in West Bank violence, which has included a surge of Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian inhabitants, has underscored fears that the territory seized by Israel in a 1967 war could spiral out of control as Israel’s blitz on the separate Palestinian enclave of Gaza proceeds.
Deadly bloodshed had been worsening in the West Bank even before the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza erupted.
Palestinians want the West Bank to be the core of an independent state. In recent years, Israel has greatly expanded Jewish settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and biblical ties to the land.