ISRAEL has destroyed multiple buildings in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, hours after its forces killed a 73-year-old man, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army said 23 buildings were destroyed on Sunday in Jenin “to prevent terrorist infrastructure from being established there”. The military also said it had killed 50 Palestinian fighters in the West Bank since mid-January.
Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents said the explosions blew up a residential block in the camp’s ad-Damj neighbourhood.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the blasts were so powerful they were heard across the city and in surrounding towns.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the military’s destruction of buildings in Jenin, describing it as a “brutal scene”.
President Mahmoud Abbas requested an urgent session of the UN Security Council to stop the destruction of entire residential blocks in the Jenin and Tulkarm camps.
In a separate incident in Arroub, in the southern West Bank, the Israeli army killed a 27-year-old man, named as Mohammed Amjad Hadoush, the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
The Israeli military launched a major offensive in the occupied West Bank last month, dubbed “Iron Wall”, focused primarily on attacking Palestinian armed groups from the Jenin area, just after it began a ceasefire with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza on January 19.
Sunday’s explosions mark an escalation as Israel increasingly commits unrestrained attacks on Palestinian infrastructure.
“The sounds are horrific,” Jenin resident Henna al-Haj Hassan told Al Jazeera via phone about the explosions.
Hassan said she and other Jenin residents have faced ongoing attacks for two weeks. She added that a curfew was in place, with shops and other businesses closed.
