ISRAELI occupation forces stormed the West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp overnight on Tuesday and throughout yesterday, destroying infrastructure.
Occupation forces launched a massive campaign of raids on homes in the eastern neighbourhood and in the Jenin camp amid the outbreak of violent confrontations.
Occupation bulldozers continued to destroy infrastructure in Jenin and its camp, especially in Al-Damj and Al-Samran neighbourhoods, amid intense drone overflights.
Armed confrontations also took place between occupation forces and Jenin residents.
The director of Jenin’s Al-Razi Hospital, Fawaz Hammad, said a young man was shot in the shoulder by occupation forces, while earlier, three citizens were injured by occupation bullets.
The Israeli army declared the city of Jenin and its camp a closed military zone and deployed its forces with large reinforcements in several neighbourhoods.
Israeli forces also stormed the al-Askar refugee camp in Nablus as part of a multipronged operation targeting several areas across the occupied West Bank.
Christos Christou, the international president of Doctors Without Borders, speaking from Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin when Israeli forces launched the raid on the city in the north of the occupied West Bank, said: ‘It has been already two-and-a-half hours that we are trapped in our hospital here in Jenin.
‘There is no way for any of the injured patients to reach the hospital and there is no way for us to reach these people.’
Christou said Israeli military vehicles blocked the entrance to the hospital and prevented ambulances from leaving. ‘Two Palestinians died of wounds while ambulances could not reach them,’ he said.
Along with Gaza, Jenin has become a main symbol of Palestinian resistance.
Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem, under protection from Israeli occupation police yesterday.
Scores of settlers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque in separate groups, where they conducted provocative tours through its courtyards.
Meanwhile, Ghazi Hamad, of the Hamas political bureau, said the group has been working ‘very hard’ with the mediating countries in order to ‘reach a compromise’ and ‘extend the ceasefire’.
While noting that ‘the situation is not easy’ and is ‘changing from time to time’, Hamad expressed optimism that the truce would be extended.
‘We are ready to release more hostages for the extension of the ceasefire. We are in communication with our brothers in Qatar and Egypt in order to see how we can manage this operation,’ he said.
‘I hope that it can be implemented today and we can see more days for the extension.’
Ghazi Hamad said the focus is now on the extension of the truce, but added that Hamas’s leadership is ready to enter deep negotiations about a comprehensive deal that would see the release of all the Palestinian prisoners for all the captives in Gaza.
‘We are interested to release all the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails … and we want to also have guarantees that they won’t be arrested again,’ he said.
