Palestinian medics say the Jenin camp has become ‘like a warzone’ while Israel clears out militants (Picture: Reuters/AP/Getty)
Medics say they are struggling to tend to the wounded amid a large-scale Israeli assault on Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.
Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldiers stormed the Jenin refugee camp after a number of drone strikes early on Monday.
Eight Palestinians have been killed and 50 injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The operation, which appears to be one of the IDF’s largest in the area in years, is targeting the Jenin Brigades, a new group of self-styled ‘resistance fighters’ whom Israel has blamed for a series of deadly attacks on civilians.
Videos and images show gunfights in the street between IDF soldiers and masked men in civilian clothing carrying modern heavy assault rifles.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank but has no control over the Jenin Brigades, described the operation as a ‘new war crime’ against ‘defenseless people’.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, an independent humanitarian group which provides most ambulance services in the West Bank, said Israeli forces had prevented its crews from entering the Jenin camp at various times on Monday.
Palestinians run away from the camp as a blaze erupts behind them (Picture: Reuters)
Armed militants with modern assault rifles were seen firing on Israeli armoured vehicles (Picture: AFP)
Palestinian medics say their crews have not been able to access the area at times (Picture: Reuters)
Some of the injured were successfuly evacuated and taken to hospital (Picture: AP)
Speaking to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news wing, the group’s chief Mahmoud al-Saadi accused soldiers of harassing paramedics, obstructing their paths and pointing weapons at them.
In one incident, an ambulance was prevented from entering to collect a pregnant woman going into labour and a military vehicle rammed into it, Mr al-Saadi added.
In one verified video filmed from the inside of a Palestinian ambulance, an Israeli soldier is heard telling the driver to leave the area after he asks for permission to evacuate people.
There has been no suggestion of a blanket ban on ambulances entering Jenin, as dozens of people have been successfully evacuated, but the fighting is feared to have delayed medical care to the wounded.
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Khaled Alahmad said the situation was like a ‘real war’, adding: ‘Every time we drive in, around five to seven ambulances… we come back full of injured people.’
Another Palestinian medic, Salah Mansour, added: ‘The Israeli raid today was a very tough one, it was tough for medics as well as civilians who are inside the camp.
‘There are many cases of women who were suffocating, pregnant women. And we treated many people who were having panic attacks.’
In the past, the Israel Defence Force has been known to capture suspected militants after injuring them, later treating them in detention.
Palestinian civilians outside the camp watch on as smoke rises from the distance (Picture: Anadolu)
Unverified footage, shared by pro-Palestinian networks who said it was filmed in Jenin on Monday, shows Israeli forces putting an injured man wearing jeans and a T-shirt on a stretcher before loading him into an armoured vehicle and driving off.
An IDF spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, said the operation was a focused raid that could last up to three days and that Israeli forces will leave the area afterwards.
One Israeli official said the goal was to ‘break the safe-haven mindset of the camp, which has become a hornets nest’.
The IDF insists it is ‘only’ striking ‘terrorist infrastructure’, including large stockpiles of ammunition and explosives it claims to have found in a mosque which militants used as a firing position.
The Jenin camp area is home to around 11,000 people and hundreds of fighters from various groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, but almost no officials or police from the Palestinian Authority.
The IDF has carried out a number of small-scale raids and drone strikes in Jenin over the past year, with one incident in January prompting the Palestinian Authority to suspend its security cooperation agreement with Israel.
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Palestinian medics say they’ve been blocked at times from entering Jenin camp, which Israel says is a ‘hornet’s nest’ of terrorists.