Israeli Military Operation Turns West Bank Jenin Refugee Camp Into A Ghost City

JAKARTA - Israel's military operations in Jenin have turned the West Bank refugee camp into what residents and some officials have described it as a ghost city.

Israel's attacks led to an unprecedented scale of destruction there for more than 20 years.

The Israeli military said the massive attack was aimed at suppressing the Iranian-backed militant group in Jenin, a Palestinian city north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Two weeks after military operations began, most of Jenin became deserted.

Thousands of Palestinians fled their homes, only carrying what they could carry, after Israel ordered them to go through a drone equipped with loudspeakers.

After destroying highways and other infrastructure, Israeli forces destroyed several buildings over the weekend, causing a loud explosion.

"We stayed at home until the drone came to us and started calling us to vacate the house and leave the neighborhood because they wanted to do an explosion," said Khalil Huwail, 39, father of four who went with his family.

"We left it with the clothes we were wearing. We can't bring anything, it's forbidden," he said. The camp is completely empty," he added.

After the bulldozers and armored vehicles were deployed near their homes, residents worked hard along a highway filled with debris to a gathering place where the Red Crescent vehicles had been waiting.

The Israeli military says they have destroyed 23 buildings and will continue to operate to thwart terror if necessary.

From the slopes facing the camp, only a few were seen in addition to the puffs of smoke and soldiers moving between the walls of the black burning house.

The operation, which is the final stage of the attack launched last month, began after a ceasefire began in the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip with the Islamic militant group Hamas.

UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian aid agency, said the destruction in Jenin damaged a fragile ceasefire reached in Gaza, and posed a new escalation risk.

The refugee camp, which is said to have long been the headquarters of militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has been repeatedly raided for years not only by the Israeli military but also by the Palestinian government.

Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub said the latest operation in the camp left only about 100 people out of the 3,490 families who were there before.

"The situation is worse than what happened in 2002 because the number of refugees is less," he told Reuters.