Jenin is relatively quiet, certainly compared to what happened here in the recent past. Until a few months ago this state was unattainable. The IDF forces here suffered explosives, Molotov cocktails and constant riots. Painful losses as well. From these alleys came the spring 2022 terrorist attacks. One of the commanders I spoke with at the time described it as "Lebanon in the heart of Israel". In the last two months, since October 7, More than 100 wanted persons were arrested, 60 terrorists were killed and 50 weapons were confiscated in 16 operations in Jenin.
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I joined a special tour in the jeep of Judea and Samaria Brigade Commander, Brigadier General Avi Bluth, into the heart of the refugee camp as part of a large-scale operation that is being conducted there. Even before we arrived at the camp, we stopped at the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin. The army said it was important that we stop there.
It turns out that the Hamas "fighting doctrine" resonates here as well. Security officials have identified that the armed terrorists from the refugee camp are fleeing to the hospital in ambulances and hiding among the patients, using the patients as human shields with the understanding that the IDF forces will not enter.
A few weeks ago, IDF forces surrounded the hospital and captured a wanted man while he was in an ambulance right at the entrance to the hospital. "They thought we wouldn't get there. This is the same practice we know from other terrorist organizations. They shoot civilians and hide in hospitals," explained a security official.
Since the beginning of the war, while the IDF operates in Gaza and the northern border, the Judea and Samaria Brigade has been operating in the heart of the refugee camp in an unprecedented sequence of operations. This week, the 16th operation began, a broad operation comprising of about 1,400 soldiers, predominantly reservists, who move between the camp's alleys, detain hundreds of suspects, search for hiding places, detonate tunnel shafts and dismantle terrorist infrastructure.
Just this week, as of writing this piece, six terrorists were eliminated in the refugee camp. Most of them from the air. "Today's Jenin is not like what it was before. The pace and aggressiveness of our activity has completely changed since October 7. You see with your own eyes how the camp behaves. Infantry soldiers move here relatively easily and we work, going from area to area and cleaning it of terrorism," explained the security official.
The camp alleys are empty. There are about 11,000 camp residents and they had enough of the Palestinian terrorists, according to the security officials, . "See for yourself, the houses are empty, 80 percent of the residents here left already a few weeks ago. They realized that we are operating here with great force. Some of them moved to houses they own in the city of Jenin and some to other relatives in the West Bank," the security official said.
"They express resentment at the mess the terrorists cause here. They want us to work here. The IDF is forced to work in the camp simply because the Palestinian Authority is unable. The Palestinian Authority security personnel tried to arrest some of the camp suspects, but were ultimately resisted and so they withdrew."
We continued to the western part of the refugee camp. On the way we passed by "Shirin Square", named after Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al-Jazeera journalist who was killed in the shooting incident in May of last year. The brigade commander's jeep stops at the entrance to the Al-Ashar Mosque, the refugee camp is spread out in front of us and we are at a strategic point.
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IDF soldiers and reservists operate in Jenin to remove terrorist threat
(Photo: Gadi Kabalo)
The brigade's operations officer, Lt. Col. Dori Sa'ar told us "the panther incident took place right next to us. An IDF vehicle was hit by an IED in June of this year. During a complex rescue operation, armed terrorists shot at us non-stop from the very mosque we are standing in. A paratrooper force came here and subdued the mosque."
"We are experiencing incidents with explosives and finding a lot of ammunition in houses, in shafts and in hiding places. The battalion is scanning here from house to house and deepening our grip inside the refugee camp. We are pushing the terrorists out. We have a special battalion made up of all types of people from Israeli society. They all dropped everything on October 7 and just came here without a summons and without anyone telling them. We understood very quickly the severity of the situation and since then we have been here with the exception of a few visits at home. Morale is through the roof," said Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Tomer Brock.
And what about the smoke we see here? I asked. "This is a hideout apartment that we received an indication that it contains several explosives. Together with a bomb disposal unit, we captured the apartment and blew it up. There were hundreds of kilograms of explosives here," explained one of the counterterrorism soldiers who were here.
We passed the area and entered the ruins of the Al-Nasser Mosque, where one of the most dramatic events in the refugee camp took place, on October 22, an Air Force fighter jet bombed the mosque after a terrorist cell that planned to carry out a very significant attack in the heart of Israel encamped there.
Among the ruins we discovered an amazing thing. On the middle floor was a kindergarten and just like Gaza, there were many weapons its rooms. Again the same "fighting doctrine" of the Hamas terrorists. We drove out of the camp.
"It would be a shame if Judea and Samaria remains the same after the war as it was on October 6," said the senior official. "There is an opportunity to change the situation here. We have many forces at work here. We are peeling off the terrorists from the refugee camp. We have to remain humble, certainly after what we experienced on October 7, and understand that reality can be deceiving. But the reality here has changed."