Palestinians flee as Israel conducts its largest West Bank offensive in years : NPR

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Residents of the Jenin refugee camp fled their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with an operation in the area, in Jenin, West Bank, Tuesday. Palestinian health officials put the Palestinian death toll from the two-day raid at 10. The Israeli military said Israel launched the operation because some 50 attacks over the past year had emanated from Jenin.

Majdi Mohammed/AP

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Majdi Mohammed/AP

TEL AVIV — A Palestinian car ramming and stabbing attack has wounded at least eight people in an upscale district of Tel Aviv, while as much as a quarter of the Palestinian population of the crowded Jenin refugee camp has fled an Israeli offensive there, the United Nations estimates.

The Tel Aviv attack came on Tuesday as Israel conducted its second day of a military campaign in the West Bank against what it says is a hub of Palestinian militants and weapons. Israel has used rare drone airstrikes and hundreds of ground troops on a scale not seen in the West Bank in more than a decade. At least 10 Palestinians were killed and around 100 were reported wounded.

Palestinian attacker wounds 8 in Tel Aviv as Israel presses West Bank operation

The Hamas militant group claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv attack Tuesday. Israeli police say the Palestinian driver, identified by local media as a 20-year-old man from a West Bank village near Hebron, rammed his vehicle into pedestrians at an outside shopping center, then exited the car and stabbed people with a sharp object. Paramedics say an Israeli civilian shot and killed him.

“Whoever thinks an attack like this will deter us from continuing our battle against terror is mistaken,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli soldiers drive an APC out of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, during an Israeli military raid of the Jenin refugee camp where Israel says there is a militant stronghold, Tuesday.

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Israeli soldiers drive an APC out of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, during an Israeli military raid of the Jenin refugee camp where Israel says there is a militant stronghold, Tuesday.

Ariel Schalit/AP

In the Jenin refugee camp raid, infrastructure suffered major damage.

Israel’s army said it destroyed roads leading into to the camp, citing intelligence that the roads were booby trapped — and leaving only one road usable for ambulances to evacuate the wounded, Jenin government hospital director Dr. Wissam Bakr said.

The scene at the Jenin government hospital next to the refugee camp was frantic. Medics say Israeli troops were firing tear gas at the entrance of the hospital, as men threw rocks devices at Israeli forces. Bandaged young men with various injuries sat on the hospital floor and families sought shelter in the hospital courtyard and nearby streets.

Palestinians carry a wounded man shot by Israeli fire shortly after he threw a bomb toward an Israeli army vehicle during a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp, a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank, Tuesday.

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“You can hear it, I think, yes?” said a hospital nurse in an interview with NPR, as loud shots rang outside the hospital. He gave only his first name, Nowras.

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings says between 3,000 and 6,000 Palestinians have fled the area of fighting. That’s up to a quarter of the Jenin refugee camp’s total population, which the U.N. estimates at around 24,000. Water and electricity supplies were cut for most of the camp due to infrastructure damaged by the military operation, she said.

“Some medical staff are assuming great risks and walking into the Jenin camp to help. Humanitarian staff and ambulances must be allowed into the camp, and electricity and drinking water restored,” Hastings said.

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