The Israeli army is bombing residential blocks in the Jenin refugee camp just like it did in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official told Anadolu on Sunday.
Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin in the northern West Bank, said Israeli authorities are working to destroy the camp and make it uninhabitable by demolishing homes and infrastructure.
“The Israeli army has transferred its war from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, and what is happening in the Jenin camp is akin to the Israeli genocide in Gaza,” he said.
Abu al-Rub noted that the Israeli bombings in the camp are “the first of their kind since 2002, following a battle that destroyed parts of the camp at the time.”
In that year, coinciding with the Second Intifada, or Al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel launched a military offensive on the Jenin camp and destroyed it. Palestinians in the area previously told Anadolu that they are living through an even greater tragedy than the one in 2002.
Abu al-Rub warned that “the Israeli army intends to blow up more residential blocks in the Jenin camp, as we have been informed.”
He also pointed out that 3,420 Palestinian families have been displaced from the camp out of 3,490 due to the Israeli military assault.
Earlier on Sunday, Bashir Matahen, the director of public relations and media for Jenin municipality, told Anadolu that the Israeli army had blown up 21 homes in three neighborhoods in the camp.
Matahen said the Israeli army evacuated the camp of all its residents in recent days and forced them to flee.
On Jan. 21, the Israeli army launched an assault on Jenin city and its refugee camp, killing at least 25 Palestinians. The offensive was later expanded to include the city of Tulkarm, where three Palestinians were killed.
The escalation in the West Bank came after a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal took hold in Gaza on Jan. 19, following 15 months of Israel’s genocidal war that killed over 47,400 Palestinians and reduced the enclave to rubble.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, more than 900 Palestinians have been killed across the West Bank in attacks by Israeli forces and settlers.