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Israeli military forces appeared to withdraw on Friday from the Palestinian city of Jenin after a 10-day raid that has killed 21 people, including children, and caused widespread destruction of streets, homes and businesses, according to Palestinian news media and residents.
ِHours after the Israeli military pulled back from the city, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian civil defense teams along with public works and utility employees began field surveys to assess the damage and to restore essential services, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether all soldiers had left Jenin, or whether they would soon return. Several times over the past week, Israeli forces have pulled back from cities and towns in the West Bank before reversing course.
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The Israeli military said in a statement Friday that its forces “are continuing to act in order to achieve the objectives of the counterterrorism operation.”
Many Palestinian residents were trapped inside their homes over the past week and a half as the Israeli military sent troops and bulldozers into several West Bank cities and towns.
The raids, which included assaults on Jenin and Tulkarm, were among the deadliest and most extensive in the territory in years.
At least 39 people have been killed across the territory, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Seven children were among those killed, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which said that the past week was the deadliest for Palestinian civilians in the West Bank since November.
Nearly three million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The Israeli military has described the raids — a marked escalation over the near-nightly operations that had already become the norm there — as an effort to crack down on Palestinian armed groups and combat rising attacks against Israelis.
In its statement Friday, the Israeli military said that its forces had killed 14 members of armed Palestinian groups and detained more than 30 suspects in Jenin over the past week and a half.
It also said it had carried out four airstrikes, a type of attack that had been rare in the West Bank before the Hamas-led assault on Israel last Oct. 7.
Some Jenin residents who had made dangerous escapes from their neighborhoods over the past 10 days returned Friday morning to survey the aftermath of the Israeli attacks. They were also able to check on loved ones whom they couldn’t reach because phone lines were down, residents said.
Many found homes so badly damaged that they are no longer habitable, and streets so ravaged by bulldozers that cars cannot pass, they said.
Anushka Patil and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.
