IDF Soldier Killed, 16 Injured During West Bank Refugee Camp Raid

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Thursday that 1 soldier was killed and 16 others wounded in roadside bomb explosions during an overnight raid on the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp. Violence has surged under the Israeli occupation, as the IDF along with illegal settlers have killed over 550 Palestinians, including nearly 140 children, since the war on the besieged Gaza Strip began.

The IDF claims it was carrying out the raid around midnight between Wednesday and Thursday in search of members of a Hamas network operating in the city of Jenin as well as the adjacent camp. An IDF probe found that a Panther armored personnel carrier (APC) was hit with an improvised explosive device (IED) and caused minor injuries. When a second group of troops arrived and attempted to evacuate the soldiers within the APC, a second IED exploded and killed a sniper team commander. In the second detonation, multiple troops were wounded.

The Times of Israel reported, “16 soldiers were wounded by the bombs – one seriously, five moderately, and the rest lightly.” Prior to the explosion rocking the APC, an armored IDF bulldozer and backhoe had torn up the roads in an effort to detect any IEDs. This is the Israeli army’s standard practice before sending in their lighter vehicles.

The outlet added, “Still, the two large IEDs were not discovered by the bulldozer and backhoe, and the military believes that they were planted much deeper in the ground than usual – around a meter and a half (5 feet) below ground. Normally, such explosives are buried a few dozen centimeters (one or two feet) under roads. The IDF was probing how the bombs were activated, either by wire or wirelessly. Findings at the scene indicated that both methods could have been used.”

Jenin’s residents said the IDF also raided a pharmacy near the camp overnight, arresting people inside, adding that bulldozers damaged infrastructure. Medical sources say a young Palestinian man was wounded during that raid. The local news agency Wafa reported that he was “injured by shrapnel from occupation bullets in the face, and that the occupation forces prevented ambulance crews from transporting him to the hospital.”

Additionally, Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reports there was a series of raids and searches of homes in the area. Violence broke out across city centers, while the IDF fired tear gas at the Jenin Governorate Hospital and stormed it. The Israeli troops were said to have shot bullets at civilians’ cars as well. By dawn, the Israeli army was still operating in the area with dozens of snipers stationed on the roofs of houses and commercial buildings.

Multiple people were reportedly detained and taken to undisclosed locations, following scores of reports in Israeli media as well as the wider press detailing rampant torture and sexual abuse taking place in such facilities. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said a minimum of 28 Palestinians, including 9 from Jenin, were rounded up by the IDF throughout the West Bank on Wednesday, which brought the total number of arrests to 9,430 since the war on the Gaza Strip was launched.

In recent weeks, Tel Aviv’s raids on Jenin have killed several Palestinians. This latest raid comes after footage went viral across social media showing the IDF had horizontally tied a 24-year-old Palestinian man, identified by medics as Mujahid Raed Abbadi, to the bonnet of a military jeep while driving through Jenin. The visceral imagery sparked outrage, leading Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, to say the IDF was using Abbadi as a human shield. It was not the first such incident.

Following his torture, he told reporters in the hospital that he was hit after he stepped outside his uncle’s house during another raid. “I tried to withdraw and get inside the house, but they started shooting… When [the soldiers] arrived, they stomped on my head and hit my face, my injured leg and hand,” Abbadi said. “They were laughing and playing while they hit me.” After being beaten more and tied to the jeep, Abbadi received burns on his back and neck.

Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.