WEST BANK: ISRAELI MILITARY INCURSION INTO JENIN RUFUGEE CAMP ENDS WITH 24 PALESTINIANS ARRESTED, A 16-YEAR-OLD BOY KILLED AND SEVERAL YOUTHS INJURED

Record ID: 347564

  • Title: WEST BANK: ISRAELI MILITARY INCURSION INTO JENIN RUFUGEE CAMP ENDS WITH 24 PALESTINIANS ARRESTED, A 16-YEAR-OLD BOY KILLED AND SEVERAL YOUTHS INJURED
  • Date: 17th May 2002
  • Summary: (U7) JENIN, WEST BANK (MAY 17, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF AN INJURED YOUTH WHEELED INTO HOSPITAL 0.16 2. SV: ANOTHER INJURED YOUNG MAN ON BED IN HOSPITAL 0.25 3. MV: 16-YEAR-OLD BOY WHO DIED BEING OPERATED ON 0.40 4. VARIOUS OF GRIEVING PARENTS OF 16-YEAR-OLD BOY WHO DIED 1.11 5. SLV: EXTERIOR OF DAMAGED HOU
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JENIN, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAA4ZS26NRFJ418R2UWPQNDSPAB
  • Story Text: An Israeli military incursion into the West Bank city
    of Jenin has ended after Israel arrested 24 Palestinians in
    the city, killing a 16-year-old boy and injuring several other
    youths in the process.


    Keeping up the pressure, Israeli forces pushed into the
    battle-scarred Jenin refugee camp on Friday (May 17),
    returning to the scene of the fiercest fighting in Israel's
    recent West Bank offensive, and a second camp near Nablus.

    Palestinian sources said two Palestinian boys were killed in
    the raids.

    In the Jenin camp, smoke rose from several buildings
    during a pre-dawn assault that ended within several hours.

    Troops also operated in parts of the town of Jenin.

    Palestinian sources said a 16-year-old boy was killed by
    Israeli gunfire before the troops pulled out. The army said at
    least 24 suspected militants were arrested in the area.

    In the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces surrounded the
    house of a member of the radical Islamic organisation Hamas
    and ordered him outside.

    The alleged militant, Jamal Abu al-Haija, did not appear,
    but his wife and children left the house. Soldiers then threw
    hand grenades inside and the house caught fire, the witnesses
    said.

    They said the armoured force also entered parts of Jenin
    city and that soldiers rushed to several buildings and ordered
    people to get out.

    Arafat told reporters the Jenin assault showed that
    Israel's "military plan of escalation against the Palestinian
    people is going on".

    An army spokeswoman called it a "pinpoint operation" and
    said "arrests have been made".

    Witnesses reported sporadic gunfire and explosions during
    the incursion.

    Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said
    Israel launched the assault after receiving "intelligence
    information about suspects who are involved in terrorism who
    went back into the refugee camp after the Israelis pulled
    out".

    Israeli troops reoccupied Palestinian-ruled towns in the
    West Bank last month in an offensive the government said was
    aimed at rooting out fighters blamed for a wave of suicide
    bombings in a Palestinian uprising launched 19 months ago.

    The army has pulled out of the towns but continues to
    encircle them and stage ad hoc raids in what it calls an
    effort to seize leftover suspects and pre-empt further suicide
    attacks.

    Human rights groups said Israel may have committed war
    crimes in last month's operation in Jenin, a refugee camp for
    more than 50 years, which has become a militant stronghold.

    Israeli bulldozers levelled homes, and troops and gunmen
    fought fierce house-to-house battles.

    At least 1,354 Palestinians and 474 Israelis have died in
    the Palestinian uprising that erupted in September 2000 after
    peace talks stalled.
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