Several people have been killed as the Israeli military raided the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian health services said at least 10 Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded in the raid, which was launched in the early hours of Tuesday, continued well into the night and is expected to last for days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation, dubbed “Iron Wall,” was intended to “eradicate terrorism” in the area.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its first responders treated seven people injured by live ammunition, adding that Israeli forces were hindering access to the area.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “maximum restraint” from security forces and said that he “remains deeply concerned”.
Israeli NGO B’Tselem accused the Israeli government of using the Gaza ceasefire as “an excuse and opportunity to ratchet up the oppression of West Bank Palestinians”.
“This is not what a ceasefire looks like,” it said.
Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP the operation was “an invasion of the (refugee) camp”.
“It came quickly, Apache helicopters in the sky and Israeli military vehicles everywhere,” he added.
A spokesman for the Palestinian security forces said in a statement that Israeli forces had “opened fire on civilians and security forces, resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel, one of whom is in critical condition”.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday that 47,107 people had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, with the toll continuing to rise in spite of a ceasefire on Sunday as new bodies were found under the rubble.
But the health ministry is finding more dead, as the truce has allowed people to comb the ruins. Other people have died from wounds received before the fighting stopped, with the territory’s health system devastated by the war.
The bodies of 72 people “arrived at hospitals… over the past 24 hours”, the ministry said in a statement.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulances and civil protection teams are unable to reach them,” it added.
The ministry said the number of wounded had reached 111,147 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
