(Washington Examiner) The Palestinian Authority cut all security ties with Israel over a deadly raid in the Jenin refugee camp that allegedly killed nine Palestinians.
The Israeli Defense Forces said it executed a raid on a terrorist cell in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, killing three gunmen when they opened fire on the commandos and another three in the ensuing firefight. Claims of additional casualties are “being looked into,” and the reasoning given for the raid was that it helped in preventing several major planned terrorist attacks.
The Palestinian Authority called the incident a “massacre.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the incident as “a massacre from the Israeli occupation government, in the shadow of international silence” in a statement from his office obtained by the Middle East Eye.
“Security coordination with the Israeli occupation government no longer exists as of now,” the statement added.
“This is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against our people in full view of the world,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, added.
Palestinians burn tires and wave the national flag during a protest against Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, along the border fence with Israel, in east of Gaza City, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023.
Fatima Shbair/AP
Another Palestinian was killed in protests over the incident, bringing the total death toll of the day up to 10. One of those killed was 61-year-old Majda Obeid, who was shot in the neck while standing in front of her window, according to Palestinian health officials and two of her daughters, per the Wall Street Journal.
Mourners carry the bodies of eight Palestinians, some draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, during a joint funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023.
Majdi Mohammed/AP
The terror group Hamas called for “the great revolutionary tide” to put a stop to Israel’s “killing and criminality.” Media Line reported that Hamas and fellow terror group Islamic Jihad called an “emergency meeting” in the aftermath of the raids.
Israel, meanwhile, defended the raid as saving numerous civilian lives by preemptively stopping several terror attacks being planned by the group.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised “the courage and resourcefulness of the soldiers who prevented attacks that could have cost many lives.”
Other pro-Israeli experts praised the operation as necessary amid the claimed failing power of the Palestinian Authority, which terror groups have come to exploit.
“The Jenin operation shows that almost 10 months into Operation Break the Wave, Israel retains its tactical skills in the face of dogged Palestinian attempts to pull off a terrorist outrage. There is additional psychological value to the blow delivered so deep within Jenin where Islamic Jihad had clearly thought it was sufficiently protected to hatch a new plot unmolested. For all the talk of a Palestinian national struggle, the gunmen of Jenin and other West Bank trouble spots are, for all intents and purposes, armed criminal gangs who pose as much danger to Palestinian civilians as they do to Israel,” Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said.
