The head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said Thursday that Israel’s “multi-front war” is now focused on the occupied West Bank amid a new Israeli siege on the northern Palestinian city of Jenin.
“We are in a multi-front war, and now it is the turn of Samaria,” said Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank.
Bar made the comments while visiting Israeli troops with Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the head of the Israeli military, who said Israeli forces must be ready for “continuous operations in the Jenin refugee camp, to handle pressure and, at the same time, know how to do other things as well.”
At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin since Israel launched its renewed assault on the city on Tuesday. Resistance groups have said they’re engaging with the invading Israeli troops, but so far, there’s been no word of Israeli casualties.
Jenin Deputy Governor Mansour al-Saadi said Thursday that Israeli forces had blockaded all four entrances to the city and its refugee camp. Israeli military bulldozers have been tearing up roads in Jenin, and hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camp have been forced to flee their homes.
Al-Saadi warned the attack could be a “repetition of what happened in the northern Gaza Strip, a systematic campaign of extermination.” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said Israel is applying “lessons” it learned in Gaza in its assault on the West Bank.
The Israeli military launched its assault on Jenin just two days after the Gaza ceasefire took effect. The attack also came after the Palestinian Authority was conducting a major operation in Jenin as part of a crackdown on resistance groups.
The PA withdrew when Israel began its invasion, but there are reports that PA forces have been involved in the Israeli attack on the city. According to The Cradle, the PA killed a resistance fighter in Jenin on Wednesday night.