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At least seven people were injured, three of them seriously, in a car attack and shooting on Pinchas Rosen Street north of Tel Aviv, Israel. This is confirmed by the Israeli police speaking of a terrorist attack, while the videos shared on social networks show the attacker dead on the ground. A police source quoted by Haaretz says that the assailant, driving a car, first pointed towards a bus stop and then started shooting at the people present. The man was later neutralized and killed by an armed Israeli civilian who was at the scene.
“The heroic attack on Tel Aviv is the first response to the occupation’s crimes against our people in Jenin.” This is what Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said after the attack that injured at least seven people. “The occupation will pay the price for its crimes against Jenin,” Qassem added, “we commend our people’s heroes and fighters in Jenin.” The Jerusalem Post reports it.
At least 10 Israelis killed in military operation in Jenin
On the security front, however, the massive military operation carried out by the Israeli army in the refugee camp of Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, could instead be concluded within a few days, therefore well ahead of schedule. According to the spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Daniel Hagari, the operation – only the latest, in order of time, in a series of blitzes and interventions that have been going on for months – has already reached most of its targets and with less resistance or secondary complications than intelligence predicted. The IDF spokesman explained that the military had identified a few dozen targets to be eliminated in terms of terror command centers and weapons and explosives depots. All but a dozen of those locations have already been destroyed or neutralized on the first day of the operation, many in the first two hours in air force strikes, Hagari explained.
Israeli operation in Jenin, in the West Bank: at least 10 dead
At least 10 Palestinians killed by troops deployed on the field in the Israeli army attack on Jenin. The Palestinian Ministry of Health also speaks of the discovery “of a body” in the city whose identity “is not yet known”. The same source reported over 100 injured, 20 of them seriously. The exit from the refugee camp of 3,000 people (about 18,000 inhabitants) was also confirmed, while the Israeli army strongly denied having ordered the residents to leave the place and defined the news as “baseless”.
Israeli army: “Exodus initiative of the inhabitants”
On July 3, at the end of the first day of fighting in Jenin, “1,500-3,000 inhabitants left their homes last night, on their own initiative,” military radio explained, thus rejecting claims from Palestinian sources that the exodus it would be forced upon them by the army. Kan public radio added that the eviction of those families was coordinated by the Red Crescent (local equivalent of the Red Cross). The displaced have mostly chosen to move, for the time being, to agricultural areas close to Jenin. Military sources added that on the first day of operations, the military managed to capture 120 wanted people, out of a list of 160 names. The new searches now focus on members of two cells responsible for recent attacks, including the killing of an Israeli at the Jewish settlement of Hermesh in the West Bank.