Israeli officer killed, 16 other soldiers injured in Jenin refugee camp during army invasion

The Israeli army announced this morning that an army officer was killed and 16 others were wounded when a “Panther” model Israeli military vehicle was targeted with an improvised explosive device during a military incursion in the northern West Bank city of Jenin and Jenin refugee camp. The army reported that the injuries of the soldier were moderate to serious.

The operation began with the infiltration of a pharmacy near the Jenin Governmental Hospital by Israeli special forces, where a group of political leaders in Jenin had gathered. Among them were Jamal Huweil, a member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah and a former veteran of the Battle of Jenin in 2002, Jamal al-Zubeidi, the father of martyrs Muhammad al-Zubeidi and Naeem al-Zubeidi, who were members of the Jenin Brigade, and Osama Abu Arab, a retired member of the Palestinian Authority.

After the special forces detained everyone in the pharmacy, military reinforcements arrived from several entrances to the city of Jenin. They surrounded the pharmacy and the vicinity of Jenin refugee camp as sporadic armed clashes ensued in several areas.

The special force held the people in the pharmacy for three to four hours, conducting field interrogations and arresting eight of them. Naeem Al-Saadi, one of the people who were in the pharmacy, told Mondoweiss that he and his friends usually sit together in the pharmacy and were surprised when the special forces stormed entered and placed each person in a corner.

After that, they divided them into two groups: those they wanted to arrest and those they intended to release. 

“They put eight of us in a side room,” he said. “Among the detainees were individuals who had come to see the radiologist in the nearby health center and another who had come to the pharmacy to buy medicine for his wife, who was in labor at the hospital next to us.”

‘The Panther’s graveyard’

During the invasion, an armored troop carrier was targeted with an IED, leading to significant damage and casualties among Israeli soldiers. The Israeli Channel 12 revealed the details of the “serious” incident during the early morning raid, which resulted in the death of an army officer and the injury of 16 other soldiers.

In an exclusive interview with Mondoweiss, a member of the Jenin Brigade stated that the explosion that occurred was just a small part of what the resistance had prepared for any raid or attack by the occupation forces on Jenin and the camp. 

“Jenin will be the graveyard of the Panther,” he said, referring to previous incidents in which Israeli military vehicles, especially Panthers, were destroyed by explosive devices.

Last year in June, Jenin’s resistance factions blew up a Panther carrier during an Israeli raid, causing Israeli forces to call for backup and air support from an Apache helicopter. After the damage dealt to the Panther at the time, Israeli forces conducted a full-scale invasion of Jenin refugee camp on July 3, 2023, over the course of 48 hours.

Channel 12 indicated that the operation targeted the infrastructure of Hamas in Jenin refugee camp, explaining that the Israeli force entered the camp from several directions simultaneously with the D9 military bulldozers conducting a “sweeping” of the area to ensure there were no explosives present.

According to the army, what happened was a double ambush with two explosive devices. The first targeted a type of modern troop carrier called the Panther, and the second targeted the rescue force that arrived at the area, resulting in a significant number of injuries.

“In this stage, the vehicle was hit by the explosive device and immediately exploded. The soldiers in the vehicle sustained minor head injuries, and the explosive device did not penetrate the vehicle. Immediately, a rescue force entered to evacuate the wounded from the vehicle, and infantry forces arrived to rescue them, at which point Officer Skajiyo was killed,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

The initial assessments indicate that the homemade explosive devices were buried at a depth of about 1.5 meters, which was deeper than the excavation point of the D9 bulldozer. The D9 was clearing the way ahead of the military vehicles, but it was unable to detect the explosive devices due to their depth.

The explosive devices were pre-prepared in an ambush on the plains of Marj Ibn Amer. The Israeli army is conducting an investigation to determine whether they were detonated through wired or wireless means. The Jenin Brigade released a statement asserting that they detonated homemade explosive devices targeting Israeli military vehicles, resulting in direct casualties.

The Israeli army radio confirmed that the Israeli army faces an increasing threat of more complex mines and bombs in the West Bank. It pointed out that “the planning of the double explosion relied on a meticulous analysis of the path of the incursion and withdrawal operations carried out by the Israeli army.”

The al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and the al-Qassam Brigades (the military wings of Fatah and Hamas, respectively) in Jenin announced their responsibility for the gunfire operations targeting the Israeli army during the raid on the city and the refugee camp.

During the raid, the Israeli army demolished infrastructure in the camp and several neighborhoods within the city. Concerns have begun to mount of a possible broader retaliatory raid by the Israeli army in the coming hours or days, especially given the significant number of casualties among Israeli forces, and in light of previous full-scale invasions of the camp following the damaging of army vehicles.