“At this moment we are completing the mission, and I can say that our extensive activity in Jenin is not a one-time operation,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a checkpoint near the city.
Palestinian fighters from militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah had fortified the camp with obstacles and watching posts to counter regular army raids.
Power and water supplies remained cut off in the camp and in some areas of the city after bulldozers that ploughed up roads looking for improvised bombs cut cables and a main water pipe.
Israeli forces uncovered underground explosives caches, one concealed in a tunnel under a mosque, confiscated 1,000 weapons and arrested 30 suspects, the military said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had evacuated 500 families from the camp, around 3,000 people.
Jihad Hassan, 63, who fled the camp after his son was wounded, said a drone strike had prompted him to leave.
“You don’t hear a sound, you just see the explosion,” he said, as he waited with his son at the Jenin Government Hospital. “It is something, when a person is forced to leave their home.”
Around 100 people have been injured, the Palestinian health ministry said, 20 of them seriously.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
