West Bank
\nIsraeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after a major nine-day operation there.
\nThe area – a stronghold of militants and with a civilian population of about 60,000 – was targeted in one of the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 (IDF) biggest actions in the West Bank for years. The IDF said it was acting against terrorism.
\nAt least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – the Palestinian health ministry says.
\nMost of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.
\nAn Israeli soldier was also killed during fighting in Jenin.
\nThe city of Tubas and al-Faraa refugee camp were also raided during the operation across the northern West Bank – the deadliest of its kind since the start of the war in Gaza last October triggered by Hamas\u2019s attack on Israel.
\nHundreds of troops from several branches of the security forces were involved, with civilians confined to their homes and utilities cut as the Israeli military battled with militants on the ground and with air strikes.
\nResidents of Jenin camp in the west of the city are emerging into the streets for the first time since the IDF began its assault on 27 August.
\nMany, stunned and exhausted, slowly assessed the damage – the new layers of destruction mapping this operation onto the camp.
\nKhalid abu Sabeer lives in a basement apartment next to the mosque. The entire floor of his home, he said, was blown out by a powerful explosion.
\nThe Israeli army was interested in a cave beneath the building, he said, that had been there for decades, empty.
\nThe IDF asked him to leave before blowing it up \u2013 and his home along with it.
\nAnother resident of the camp, Mustafa Antir, described intense attacks from Israel.
\n\u201cIt was impossible to tell where it was coming from: explosions, drones, shooting. Here and here and here, and from the sky. You can\u2019t imagine how heavy it was.\u201d
\nYears of violent confrontation between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups have been etched into Jenin\u2019s narrow pathways \u2013 bullet-holes scattered across walls, piles of rubble left by military bulldozers, graffiti in the shape of M16 rifles, along with the name \u201cHamas\u201d.
\nAmong the destruction is a hole in the middle of the city centre \u2013 the main road broken and impassable.
\nConstruction vehicles dig whole tree trunks out of the shattered road and cart them away. Shop owners and photojournalists clamber over the rubble to inspect the damage.
\nOn either side, a crowd has paused to watch the rebuilding: residents on foot, on scooters, on bicycles, out on the streets for the first time in more than nine days.
\nThe head of Jenin\u2019s government hospital, Dr Wissam Bakr, who is also there, says the first four days of the Israeli operation were the hardest for the hospital, with power and water supplies cut.
\nThey were relying on generators and water tanks, he said, with two new-borns and two elderly patients on ventilators.
\nFurther down the same road, the sounds of the city have returned: stallholders are back at the edge of the marketplace, hawking carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables; the cafes around packed with generations of men and boys.
\nOn Friday morning, gunfire erupted again in the refugee camp, signalling the start of many funerals taking place. The BBC understands at least eight of the dead are civilians, including a 16-year-old girl.
\nAt the funeral of Mohammed Zubeidi, one of five militants killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tubas on Thursday, a Palestinian fighter spoke defiantly.
\n\u201cWhen you see the Israelis kill your brother, kill this or that person, how do you \u2013 in your heart \u2013 stay sitting and looking at all of this?\u201d he said to the BBC.
\n\u201cPeople are afraid that they\u2019re coming to destroy their homes, or arrest them, but so what? Let them arrest everyone \u2013 my brother has been arrested for two years. So what?\u201d
\nThe IDF said Zubeidi was \u201ca significant terrorist from the Jenin area\u201d.
\nHe was also the son of Zakaria Zubeidi, the imprisoned former commander in Jenin of the Fatah movement\u2019s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs\u2019 Brigades.
\nIn a statement, the Israeli military said that in the Jenin area \u201c14 terrorists [had] been eliminated, over 30 suspects [had] been apprehended, [and] approximately 30 explosives planted under roads were dismantled\u201d during the operation.
\nIt said it had also dismantled what it called \u201cnumerous terror infrastructure sites… including an underground weapons storage facility located beneath a mosque, and a lab used to manufacture explosives\u201d and had removed \u201clarge quantities of weapons\u201d.
\nThe Palestinian health ministry says three Palestinians have also been killed in the southern governorate of Hebron over the past nine days.
\nThe Israeli military said one of them carried out a shooting attack that killed three Israeli police officers near Tarqumiyah on Sunday.
\nThere has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas\u2019s attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.
\nMore than 600 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, the Palestinian health ministry says. Israel says it is trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
West Bank Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after a major nine-day operation there. The area – a stronghold of militants and with a civilian population of about 60,000 – was targeted in one of the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 (IDF) biggest actions in the West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-429662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n