All IDF troops withdraw from Jenin as operation finishes

The streets were deserted. 

To the extent that there were streets.

Multiple streets that the Jerusalem Post and a small group of military reporters viewed as part of an embed with IDF troops going deep into the heart of Jenin on Tuesday afternoon had been blown up or carved up, depending on whether they had been bulldozed or set off by the IDF's bomb squads.

Then again, only a few meters away, there were streets which appeared mostly untouched.

Israel is "putting an end" to the safe haven of terror that the West Bank city of Jenin had become, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Monday following a joint security assessment.

"Our forces entered Jenin to confront the terrorists - they eliminate terrorists, arrest wanted individuals, destroy command centers, and seize a significant amount of weapons. "They also do something else - they destroy laboratories on a nearly industrial scale," Netanyahu continued. "Laboratories from which they created explosives - explosives intended for the slaughter and murder of Israeli civilians."

"They are doing all of this in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, and they do it with minimal harm to civilians up to this point, and without causing harm to uninvolved parties. That is the directive - to ensure the security of our forces and to avoid, as much as possible, harming innocent people."

No one, including the IDF, knows yet what will come from the new large operation (yes, it is an operation despite being downplayed by the IDF) in Jenin.

Part of that is because no one really knows how far the IDF is going to go, how the West Bank Palestinians will respond (they were muted on day one, but day one took them by surprise), and how Israel’s other enemies as well as allies will respond.

But we do have some early data points so far to compare it to Operation Defensive Shield from 2002 and to compare it to Operation Break the Wave, which has been running since Spring 2022.

The Palestinian Authority leadership, whose representatives strongly condemned the Israeli counterterrorism operation, held an emergency meeting in Ramallah on Monday evening to discuss ways of responding to the events in Jenin. 

In a statement before the meeting, PA President Mahmoud Abbas renewed his call for providing international protection for the Palestinians. He also called for imposing sanctions on Israel and denouncing the “terror aggression” on Jenin.

The White House is monitoring closely the situation in the West Bank, where Israeli forces hit the city of Jenin with drone strikes as part of one of the biggest West Bank operations in 20 years, a spokesperson said on Monday.

"We have seen the reports and are monitoring the situation closely," a White House spokesperson said. "We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups."

The UAE "strongly condemned the attacks carried out by the Israeli occupation forces," the Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi said.

The UAE "stressed the need to immediately stop the repeated and escalating campaigns against the Palestinian people, and urged the Israeli authorities not to take steps that exacerbate tension in the occupied Palestinian territories."

Around 1:15 p.m., the IDF and a large group of armed Palestinians engaged in a wider gunbattle near a mosque. IDF aircraft also engaged the Palestinians to "remove them as a threat."

By 6:00 p.m., the IDF noted that after its exchange of fire with Palestinians, some of whom used the mosque as a new position to fire on IDF forces, it eventually succeeded in gaining access to lower regions of the mosque. In subterranean levels of the mosque, IDF intelligence and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) helped locate and neutralize two pits full of explosives and weapons.

Holy places, such as the Al-Nasr Mosque, should not be used as a front for terrorism.

Packed with loads of ammunition, and two underground pits containing explosive devices, this is just one example of how terrorists abuse the citizens of Jenin.

We will continue operating… pic.twitter.com/7eU36tqv16

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 3, 2023

"Before denouncing what we are doing in Jenin these days, let us remember the 28 Israelis who were killed in the last few months in terror attacks, including three sets of brothers and sisters," opposition leader and Yesh Atid party chairman MK Yair Lapid said on Monday ahead of his party's weekly meeting.

"Our children are being slaughtered, and Israel has every right on earth to defend itself, and we from the opposition support the Israeli defense forces and the Israeli government on this matter," Lapid said.

Lapid said these remarks in English as a message to an international audience.

The opposition leader stressed that the operation's purpose was not to "strike and additionally harm the Palestinian Authority. Lapid said that as prime minister in 2022, he had acted on the premise that "Israel has no interest in bringing down the Palestinian Authority, but rather to strengthen it."

"However, If the authority does not want us to act in its terror, it must act with force to prevent terror organizations," Lapid said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint security assessment on Monday with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, and the IDF chief of staff at the Beit Lid base, regarding the progress of operations in Jenin.

The prime minister received an overview of the operational achievements thus far and discussed future objectives.