At least seven people were injured in Tel Aviv on Tuesday in a vehicle attack, coinciding with the largest Israeli military incursion into Jenin in years, which left 10 Palestinians dead in this northern occupied West Bank city.
The Israeli police received reports of “a car that attacked several civilians” in the north of Tel Aviv and indicated that they then “neutralized the attacker”.
Doctors indicated that five injured were taken to hospitals, but police say there are seven victims in total.
The incident takes place on the second day of the largest Israeli military incursion in years in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Both the city and its refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, have been the scene of several recent Israeli raids.
The drones flew over a city on Tuesday with closed shops and deserted streets, littered with rubble, stones and makeshift barricades, an AFP journalist found.
The Israeli army said it had “neutralized” an underground shaft used to store explosives.
“Soldiers located and dismantled two operating rooms belonging to terrorist organizations in the area,” it added in a statement on Tuesday.
“Open war against the population”
The operation, launched under the most conservative government in Israel’s history, uses armored vehicles, military bulldozers and drones.
The army shelled a “joint operations center” which it said serves as a command point for the “Jenin Brigade”, a local militant group.
It also hit an arms depot, an “observation and reconnaissance” site and a hideout to protect the perpetrators of alleged attacks on Israeli targets, it said.
Since Monday, “120 Palestinian suspects” have been detained and “about 300 armed terrorists are still in Jenin, most of them in hiding,” the armed body said.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 10 Palestinians have been killed and 100 injured, 20 of them seriously.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “an open war against the population in Jenin.”
Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians led Monday night to the exodus of “around 3,000” residents of the camp, where some 18,000 Palestinians live, according to Jenin’s deputy governor, Kamal Abu al-Rub.
Faced with drone strikes, Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli soldiers.
There were also clashes between soldiers and gunmen at a mosque in the camp, according to the army, where it said it found weapons and explosives.
Arab League meeting
“There are aerial bombardments and a ground invasion,” Mahmud al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, had recounted on Monday.
“Several houses and places were bombed (…) There is smoke coming out everywhere,” he added.
Qasem Benighader, a 35-year-old nurse who works at the hospital, said: “This is the worst attack in five years.”
According to another doctor at the Ibn Sina hospital, some of the wounded died because they were not treated in time.
“Some died and the condition of others worsened,” Tawfeek al-Shobaki, a doctor, said Tuesday.
In June, seven people died in another army intervention in this refugee camp.
Shortly after, four Israelis were killed by two Palestinians near the Jewish settlement of Eli (north).
“All options are on the table to hit the enemy,” Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned Monday.
At the diplomatic level, the Arab League called an emergency meeting for this Tuesday.
Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, denounced the incursion.
The United States said for its part it supported “Israel’s security and its right to defend its population.”
So far this year, violence related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 187 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.