By Ali Sawafta
JENIN (Reuters) -Israeli forces pulled out of the Palestinian city of Jenin on Friday, leaving a mass of damaged buildings and infrastructure, following one of the biggest security operations in the occupied West Bank in months.
Road diggers began clearing piles of debris and rubble left by the operation, which involved hundreds of troops and police backed by helicopters and drones entering all areas of the city and the adjacent refugee camp as well as surrounding villages.
Thousands of residents were displaced from their homes during the nine-day operation, during which troops fought running gunbattles with Palestinian fighters from factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah.
“When they entered, they used bulldozers and began destroying everything. They left nothing,” said Jenin resident Samaher Abu Nassa.
Water and electricity services remain cut and around 20 km of roadway was dug up by Israeli bulldozers, a tactic the military said was aimed at neutralizing roadside bombs but which has ripped up much of the centre of the city.
A statement from the military said 30 explosives planted under the roads had been dismantled.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused the military of transferring the tactics used to level the Gaza Strip into the West Bank.
Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank, has long been a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions, and the Israeli military said the operation, which also targeted the city of Tulkarm, was aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups planning attacks on Israeli civilians.
It said troops had killed 14 militant fighters during the operation, including the local commander of Hamas in Jenin. Forces also arrested 30 suspects and confiscated weapons and dismantled infrastructure including an underground weapons storage depot underneath a mosque and an explosives workshop.
On Friday, thousands, including large numbers of armed men who fired into the air, joined funeral processions for people killed during the fighting. Many of the bodies were wrapped either in Palestinian flags or the green, black and yellow flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Fatah.
In all 21 people were killed in Jenin during the operation. Many were claimed as members by the armed factions but a number were uninvolved civilians, including a 16-year-old girl, apparently shot by a sniper while looking out of the window.
While the Israeli military’s main focus over most of the past year has been in Gaza, the West Bank has seen a surge in violence, with repeated clashes between the military and Palestinian fighters as well as raids by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages and attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.
More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian health ministry figures. Many have been armed fighters but others have been youths throwing stones at protests or civilians with no involvement in the violence.
In the same period, dozens of Israeli civilians have been killed in attacks by Palestinians or in rocket and missile attacks from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by Kim Coghill and Philippa Fletcher)
