Israeli Troops Withdraw from Jenin West Bank: 13 Dead, 120 Arrested

Israeli military Home and Garden operations when they invaded the Jenin area, West Bank. (Wikimedia Commons/IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

JAKARTA - Israeli troops began withdrawing from Jenin City, West Bank on Tuesday night, after carrying out the largest military operation in the last two decades which started on Monday.

"Israeli troops started to withdraw from the Jenin camp," an army spokesperson said without further details, citing The National News from AFP, July 5.

Heavy fighting has broken out between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants since Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government launched an operation codenamed 'Home and Garden' targeting the militant group and its supporting infrastructure in Jenin.

"Today we are completing the mission and I can say that our large-scale action in Jenin is not something to be done in isolation," PM Netanyahu said during a visit to a military post near the city in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Footage shared on Twitter by an Israeli channel on Tuesday shows a convoy of armored vehicles leaving Jenin.

"In the last two years (Jenin became) a terror factory. In the last two days, it ended," said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Israeli military is understood to have dispatched about 1.000 troops and carried out more than 20 airstrikes during the operation, which drew widespread criticism for endangering civilians in Jenin.

Quoting Reuters, twelve Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in the operation. Of that number, about five of them are Palestinian militants.

The militant Islamic Jihad group claimed four of its fighters were killed, while Hamas said one of its members was killed. The status of the others is unclear, although Israeli officials say as far as they know, no civilians were killed.

However, Vanessa Huguenin, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian office, said three children were among those killed.

"We are alarmed by the scale of the air and ground operations taking place in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, and the airstrikes hitting the densely populated refugee camps," Huguenin said.

As for the injured victims, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said around 100 people were injured, with 20 of them seriously.

Separately, Doctors Without Borders said Israeli forces had fired tear gas at a hospital where his team was working.

The Israeli military said it was not aware of its troops shooting around the hospital. However, they carried out airstrikes on gunmen who were taking positions in the cemetery and posed a threat to the withdrawing troops.

An Israeli military spokesperson earlier Tuesday told The National its troops had arrested 120 suspected terrorists out of 160 being pursued.

Israel also claims to have confiscated weapons belonging to various armed groups in Jenin, when residents started leaving their homes. They claim to have found a cache of underground explosives, one of which was hidden in a tunnel under the mosque.

As a result of the military operation, the Palestinian Red Crescent said it had evacuated 500 families from Jenin, which is home to around 14.000 people or around 3.000 people.

Hours after troops began withdrawing, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired five rockets into Israel, the military said. The rockets were intercepted and there were no immediate reports of casualties.