Global Courant
Israeli forces fired tear gas at a hospital in the West Bank town of Jenin on Tuesday, injuring 125 people as a two-day attack on the town continued, Doctors Without Borders said.
The tear gas fired at the hospital rendered the emergency room “unusable”, and the ER and the rest of the hospital were “completely filled with smoke” after the attack, MSF said in a tweet.
The two-day attack on the West Bank town of Jenin left 11 Palestinians dead, including three children, and injured at least 120 Palestinians, 20 of them in critical condition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday. It is the largest raid on the West Bank since 2002.
3,000 refugees have been evacuated from Jenin since the Israeli operation began at 1 a.m. local time on Monday, the Palestinian Red Crescent, an organization working in the West Bank, said. The estimated population of the Jenin camp is about 18,000, according to the Red Crescent.
An Israeli armored vehicle fires tear gas during an ongoing military operation in the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, July 4, 2023.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images
Doctors Without Borders is one of several humanitarian organizations providing support and medical assistance to Palestinians in Jenin affected by the raid, but the damage makes it difficult to reach those in need, the organization said.
“Military bulldozers have destroyed the road to the refugee camp, preventing ambulances from reaching patients,” the organization said Monday. “All roads leading to the camp are blocked, including for ambulances.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited an outpost near the Jenin camp on Tuesday after a car rammed into a bus stop in Tel Aviv in protest of the raid, injuring six. Netanyahu reiterated his justification for the raid, claiming that Israeli forces destroyed key strongholds used by “terrorists”.
“Whoever thinks that such an attack will prevent us from continuing our fight against terrorism is wrong,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue as long as it takes to eradicate terrorism.”
Most of the Jenin camp has no access to drinking water due to the damage from the raid. Initial estimates also indicate that most of the camp is without electricity, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesperson Vanessa Huguenin said Tuesday.
Health facilities have “sustained damage” from the raid and are “reviewing a list of urgently needed supplies,” Huguenin added.
Huguenin said UN OCHA is “disturbed by the scale of air and ground operations” taking place in Jenin.
“We continue to monitor the situation on the ground and we are mobilizing – together with our humanitarian partners – to help. We are calling for access to the injured and affected people in the Jenin refugee camp,” said Huguenin.
Jordana Miller, Nasser Atta and Emma Ogao contributed to this report.
