The Israeli occupation army said Thursday that its forces killed two Palestinian fighters during clashes in the West Bank village of Burqin near Jenin. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority warns of Israeli plans to annex the territory.
The army identified those killed as Mohammed Nazzal, 25, and Qutaiba Shalabi, 30, claiming they were affiliated with Islamic Jihad and responsible for a shooting on an Israeli bus in early January.
Hamas group released a statement confirming that the two men were members of its armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, engaged in clashes with the occupation forces.
An Israeli special force raided the town of Burqin last night, deploying heavy military reinforcements to the area, where they surrounded a house amid armed clashes with resistance fighters.
The occupation forces then bombarded the house with missiles before heavy demolition machinery began tearing it down, all while large military reinforcements encircled the town.
Massive assault
With the latest fatalities, the death toll from Israel's three-day aggression on Jenin and its camp has risen to 12 people.
Military bulldozers continued on Thursday to destroy infrastructure in the city, including the entrance to the Jenin governmental hospital.
Occupation forces also besieged Al-Razi and Ibn Sina Hospitals, restricting the movement of medical staff.
Moreover, snipers positioned on rooftops fired at any moving object amid heavy movement of military vehicles belonging to the Israeli army.
"The situation is complicated," Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP.
"The occupation army has bulldozed all the roads leading to Jenin camp and the Jenin governmental hospital... There is shooting and explosions," he added.
Israeli forces have detained at least 22 people from villages in the West Bank since Wednesday evening, including a woman, in addition to former prisoners, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society said in a joint statement.
An AFP correspondent reported hearing gunfire and explosions from the northern city's refugee camp, a hotbed of militancy where Israeli forces have carried out repeated attacks.
Drones also continued to fly over the camp on Thursday, threatening residents through loudspeakers and dropping leaflets, WAFA news agency reported.
Qatari news channel Al Jazeera reported that its journalist Mohammed Al-Atrash had been arrested at his home by Palestinian forces to prevent him from covering the Israeli assault in Jenin.
Forced displacement
The occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the Jenin refugee camp, closing its entrances and forcing hundreds of Palestinian families to leave their homes and evacuate the camp.
"Hundreds of camp residents have begun leaving after the Israeli army, using loudspeakers on drones and military vehicles, ordered them to evacuate the camp," Jenin governor told AFP.
Salim Saadi, a Jenin resident who lives on the edge of the refugee camp, told AFP that the army had asked camp residents to leave between 9:00am (07:00 GMT) and 5:00pm.
"There are dozens of camp residents who have begun to leave," he said.
"The army is in front of my house. They could enter at any moment."
On Wednesday, an official in the city told Anadolu that around 2,000 Palestinian families have been displaced from the Jenin camp amid the Israeli military offensive.
Bashir Matahin, the municipality's public relations officer, told Anadolu that the families have dispersed to nearby villages under harsh conditions, lacking the bare necessities.
"A large-scale displacement was recorded today before the Israeli army, in the evening hours, prevented residents from leaving and informed them to try again on Thursday morning,” he said.
The official noted that humanitarian conditions of displaced people are "dire," with communities in receiving villages stepping in to provide basic needs "as officials and non-governmental institutions in Jenin city remain restricted from movement."
For the 5th consecutive day, the Israeli occupation forces also continue to impose arbitrary measures, installing 898 military checkpoints near most of the entrances and exits of the cities and villages of the West Bank.
In tandem, the Israeli forces tightened their military measures today at the Qalandia, Jaba, and Shuafat camps and the container checkpoints surrounding the occupied city of Jerusalem.
They continue to close main roads, forcing Palestinians to take alternative, rough dirt roads.
Meanwhile, Israeli colonists placed caravans on Palestinians' lands west of the village of Bardala in the northern Jordan Valley.
Local sources reported that a group of Israeli settlers bulldozed land west of the village of Bardala and placed caravans during the past two days amid fears that it would later be turned into a colonial outpost, Wafa reported.
On Wednesday, five Palestinians were injured after being attacked by terrorist Israeli colonists in south Hebron, south West Bank, while the Israeli colonists attacked Palestinians’ vehicles in Nablus.
Fear of new genocide in West Bank!
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, has warned of a potential Israeli genocide in the West Bank, similar to that committed in the Gaza Strip.
"As the long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza took place, Israel's death machinery escalated its firing in the West Bank, killing 10 people in Jenin today," Albanese wrote on X.
"If it is not forced to stop, Israel's genocide of Palestinians will not be confined to Gaza. Mark my words," she added.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 847 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called, in a statement Thursday, for urgent international intervention to stop the ongoing settlement and annexation of the West Bank.
It expressed concern over settlement projects revealed by the Hebrew media, aiming "to complete the Judaization of Jerusalem and its surroundings and isolate it from its Palestinian context, especially the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, Qalandia Airport, and other areas."
The ministry added that the Israeli government's move to close the occupied West Bank and prevent communication between its governorates falls within the framework of Israeli colonial plans to create an alternative geographical space and annex it.
"The continued international silence on the closure of the West Bank areas, their checkpoints and the expansion of settlements therein provides the occupation with the time it needs to complete the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the rights of our people and encourages Israel to continue committing crimes," the statement added.
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