Deadly clash at Palestinian camp inflames region ahead of Blinken trip

A deadly Israeli military raid Thursday in the occupied West Bank killed nine suspected Palestinian militants and sent regional tensions soaring ahead of a planned visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region in the coming days.

The nine Palestinians reported killed in the raid in Jenin, along with a 10th Palestinian killed in protests that followed the raid, marked the deadliest single day in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian clash in nearly two decades. Palestinian officials said they were calling for a general strike and suspending a joint security accord with the government of new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in protest.

Palestinian sources told reporters that the dead included fighters from all three of the major Palestinian militant factions — Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Another 20 people were reported wounded in the firefight.

No Israelis were reported killed in the raid and National Security Minister  Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of a number of hard-right figures in Mr. Netanyahu’s new Cabinet, praised the Jenin operation.

“Any terrorist who tries to harm our personnel should know that his blood is forfeit,” he said in a statement.

Palestinian retaliation

With U.S. and international mediators pressing for calm, Palestinian leaders warned the attack would not go unanswered, claiming that a 61-year-old woman was among the dead from the raid.

An armed response to the Jenin strike “will not take long,” deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri said in a statement.

After the raid, the Israeli defense ministry put the country’s forces in the occupied territory on heightened alert, the Associated Press reported.

The timing of the clash could hardly be worse for Mr. Blinken, whose long-planned trip to Egypt and Israel was formally announced at the State Department just hours after the Jenin raid was carried out.

The visit, which for now includes visits to Jerusalem and Ramallah, with be the U.S. top diplomat’s first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Netanyahu since the hard-line Israeli leader returned to power earlier this month.

“A number of us have been working the phones since early this morning to get an understanding of what’s happening, what’s developing and to urge de-escalation and coordination between the Israeli and Palestinian security forces,” Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told reporters at a State Department briefing called to preview Mr. Blinken’s trip.

The Palestinian Authority has suspended the security cooperation agreement with Israel to protest past clashes, but analysts feared the heavy death toll from Thursday’s raid could pose a deeper threat to the accord and clear the way for even more aggressive Israeli military action to root out known militant strongholds.

“Obviously, we don’t think this is the right step to take at this moment,” Ms. Leaf said. “Far from stepping back on security coordination, we believe it’s quite important that the parties retain – and if anything, deepen – security coordination.”

The Jenin raid could also cast a shadow over Israel’s efforts to deepen ties with long-hostile Arab states, a diplomatic initiative that Mr. Netanyahu helped initiate when he last served as prime minister in 2020.
The governments of Jordan, Turkey and Qatar all condemned the raid, as did the Organization of Islamic States.

“The Israeli occupation has become more reassured than ever before of impunity and unaccountability, which encouraged it to commit more crimes and violations against the brotherly Palestinian people, to kill civilians including children, women and the elderly, and to attack hospitals and vital civilian facilities,” the Qatari Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was “deeply alarmed and saddened” by the violence.

Fierce battle

Witnesses described a fierce and lengthy gunbattle after Israeli Defense Forces soldiers approached a number of entrances to the Jenin site, known to be a hotbed of militant Palestinian activity.

Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila called the situation at the camp “very critical” and accused IDF forces of blocking ambulances from approaching the scene, the Reuters news agency reported.

The nine Palestinians killed were the most in a single gunbattle since the United Nations began keeping records in 2005, officials said.

The IDF has been conducting Operation Breakwater, a nine-month old campaign begun under Mr. Netanayhu’s center-left predecessor, Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

The operation targeting Palestinian militant factions in Jenin and the neighboring West Bank city of Nablus had conducted raids on almost a nightly basis. Some 250 Palestinians and 30 Israelis died in fighting last year, and another 29 Palestinians have been killed already in 2023, the highest casualty totals since the second Intifada ended in 2005.

IDF officials said Thursday’s raid was sparked by intelligence that fighters for Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Jenin camp were poised to carry out “imminent” attacks on Israeli targets.

The Israeli military circulated aerial video it said was taken during the battle, showing what appeared to be Palestinians on rooftops hurling stones and firebombs on Israeli forces below, the Associated Press reported. At least one Palestinian can be seen opening fire from a rooftop.

Pressure on U.S.

Mr. Abbas was already under pressure to call off the security cooperation agreement with the Netanyahu government, and Mr. Blinken may find it hard to keep the agreement alive.

Some Palestinian leaders were saying the Biden administration, which has watched uneasily as the Netanyahu government took form, should have been more forceful in restraining its ally.

“The international powerlessness and silence is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against our people,” Minister of Information Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement Thursday. “Our people will remain steadfast and won’t give up Jerusalem and the holy sites, no matter what crimes and massacres the occupation forces commit.”

Some Israelis defend the need for Operation Breakwater, arguing the previous, more “hands-off” approach to preventing terror attacks had not worked either.

“Supporters of the IDF’s current aggressive posture could say there is no way to predict exactly what will inspire more terrorists, but at least taking the fight to the terrorists keeps them away from Israeli civilians,” Yonah Jeremy Bob wrote in an analysis Thursday for the Jerusalem Post.

But, he added, Thursday’s “massive and intense firefight” raises the question of “whether Israel has made progress in quelling the nearly 11-month-long waves of terrorism or is stuck in a quagmire and stalemate – or, perhaps, whether it may even lead to a broader war.”

— This article was based in part on wire service reports.