Israeli Forces Launch 'Iron Wall' Assault on Jenin Refugee Camp, Killing Nine Palestinians

The Israeli assault underway on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the occupied West Bank is described by Chronique de Palestine as part of a broader assault on the Palestinian people and their land, with Israel threatening to extend to Palestinians in the West Bank the genocide it has waged against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Palestinian territory — The Israeli assault currently underway on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the occupied West Bank is part of a broader assault on the Palestinian people and their land”

Chronique de Palestine

Chronique de Palestine says the latest operation in Jenin began on Tuesday afternoon (January 21), when Israeli special forces infiltrated the Jenin camp, followed by the arrival of numerous soldiers and military vehicles, drone strikes, and the announcement by Israeli military and political leaders of a new large-scale military operation named 'Iron Wall'.

Chronique de Palestine

It adds that, as part of a broad operation to arrest members of armed Palestinian factions, under the cover of security, the Palestinian security services had occupied the Jenin camp for 48 days and withdrew when the Israelis arrived.

Chronique de Palestine reports that nine Palestinians, including a child, were killed and 40 others wounded when Israeli occupation forces launched multiple air raids, dropped bombs from quadcopters, and opened fire on Palestinians trying to flee the camp.

It also says two members of armed Palestinian organizations were encircled in a house in the city of Burqin, west of Jenin, and then killed by the occupying forces the day after the operation.

In the same account, Israeli forces are said to have illegally ordered residents to evacuate the neighborhoods they had invaded in the Jenin camp, and to have conducted a campaign of raids and searches, arrested civilians, deliberately set fire to civilian houses, and damaged the camp's infrastructure.

Chronique de Palestine frames the campaign as a continuation of what it calls Israel’s genocidal war, warning that there is every chance that Israel will commit in the West Bank the crime of genocide that it has been committing in the Gaza Strip for more than 15 months.

The Jenin events are also tied in the Middle East Eye open letter to what the writer describes as a pattern of Israeli violence across Palestinian territory, including Gaza.

The letter says the writer followed French media coverage of “the latest tragic events in the Palestinian territories” and argues that coverage repeatedly used terms that reveal bias, including “a Palestinian terrorist attack in a synagogue in Jerusalem” and “the Israeli army’s response”.

L'Humanité

It asserts that, “Without uttering a single word about the Israeli massacre in Jenin the day before,” nine Palestinians died, “including two children and an elderly woman,” and it says “dozens of wounded” were left, along with “the destruction of five houses and a social and sports club in that city”.

The letter further claims that on the same day there were “fifteen Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip” with “intensive bombardments” that “horrified the civilian population around 3 a.m.”

In a separate report, MSF describes how Israeli forces launched a raid on a village, Tulkarem, on June 13, requisitioned two residential buildings and turned them into military barracks, and evicted the inhabitants.

MSF says that on June 13, the day the escalation began, Israeli authorities blocked all major checkpoints and road access to Hebron for four days, forcing people seeking medical care to cross on foot and at risk of being targeted or having passage denied entirely.

MSF also states that “In January 2025, Israeli forces launched the 'Iron Wall' military operation in the northern West Bank, still ongoing to date,” and says that by violently expelling camps established long ago and preventing any return, “more than 42,000 people have been forcibly displaced.”

Beyond Jenin, MSF describes a West Bank pattern of raids, detentions, and movement restrictions that it says tighten daily life while “the world looks away”.

MSF reports that on June 13 Israeli forces launched a raid on Tulkarem, requisitioned “two residential buildings” and turned them into “military barracks,” evicting the inhabitants, and that since then they have “regularly patrolled the village, conducted investigations, interrogations, arrests, searches, and detentions”.

It says that in the past week, West Bank communities saw daily lives subjected to “even tighter control,” and it describes how MSF suspended its mobile clinics in Hebron and Nablus because of “the closure of checkpoints and security concerns related to intensified military operations”.

MSF adds that in Jenin and Tulkarem, mobile clinics had to adjust their hours, operating “only on certain days,” due to the presence of Israeli forces in surrounding villages, forcing patients to turn to telephone consultations.

The report also describes a specific attempt to travel for care: “On June 14, I tried to take my brother from Bethlehem to a medical appointment in Hebron — a journey that should take 25 minutes,” but it says the trip took “three hours” and the brother “had to walk through a closed checkpoint”.

In Chronique de Palestine’s account of Jenin, it similarly describes systematic arrests and restrictions, saying Israeli forces conducted a campaign of raids and searches, “arrested civilians,” and “deliberately set fire to civilian houses” while also “illegally ordered the residents to evacuate”.

It also says dozens of Palestinians were “questioned and rough-handled” before being allowed to leave, and that other residents were “forced by members of the occupying army to take a specific route and were inspected and questioned in groups”.

The Times of Israël presents a different framing of the Jenin-area fighting, describing clashes and deaths in terms of Palestinian armed activity and Israeli anti-terror operations.

It says that Saturday, the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA reported that “a 20-year-old member of a terrorist organization” died from injuries sustained a month earlier during clashes on the outskirts of an Israeli military raid in the West Bank.

Middle East Eye

The article identifies the deceased as Ezzedin Kanan, “a native of Jaba near Jenin,” and says WAFA clarified that Kanan “had been shot in the head on July 3, during one of the Israeli anti-terror operations in the West Bank—the most intense since the end of the Palestinian armed uprising against Israel about twenty years ago”.

It reports that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades said Kanan was one of its “fiercest fighters” and that he would be avenged, while “Armed and masked militants framed Kanan’s funeral procession” in his hometown of Jaba.

The Times of Israël also states that Kanan’s death “brings the toll to 14 dead in this operation,” which it says lasted two days and involved “air strikes and the ground deployment of hundreds of soldiers and bulldozers used to raze roads and buildings”.

In L’Humanité’s account, the focus shifts to the Freedom Theatre in Jenin and describes Israeli actions as invading the refugee camp, conducting a campaign of arrests, and destroying or occupying houses, while publishing testimony from Sophie Mayoux and Sonia Fayman.

L’Humanité says the theatre was created in 2006 in the Jenin refugee camp and that “Over the months, Israeli army raids on Jenin have caused many injuries and deaths,” including deaths of young people connected to the theatre such as Sadeel, 14, and Mahmoud Al Saadi, 17.

A broader campaign of arrests and raids across the West Bank is described in multiple reports, reinforcing how the Jenin fighting sits inside a wider system of operations.

وكالة شهاب الإخبارية says Israeli occupation forces carried out a dawn arrest campaign in several areas of the West Bank on Wednesday, coinciding with wide-scale raids in the town of Tammun, south of Tubas, and it lists arrests including Wasam Shreem and Nidal Mustafa Abu Nasiya during the storming of Tubas, and four youths during a raid into Teasir east of Tubas: Mahmoud Muhammad Talab, Majed Muhammad Talab, Noor Talab Talab Talab, and Bilal Abd Debek.

Middle East Monitor

It adds that the forces raided the village of Awarta southeast of Nablus and arrested Ziad Ishtiya, and it describes further raids including Balata Refugee Camp and the raid on Asira al-Qibliya south of Nablus, where it says two young men, Mohammad Adnan and Hamid Ahmad Saleh, were arrested.

In Yeni Şafak’s report, Israeli forces arrested 17 Palestinians, including a woman, in raids and house-search campaigns across areas including Yaʼbad southwest of Jenin and Nablus, and it says in Qalqiliyah the forces arrested a woman after raiding her home and searching it.

WAFA’s report, dated 04/May/2026, says Israeli occupation forces raided the town of Ya'bad, west of Jenin, on Monday morning and launched a large-scale detention campaign, with local sources telling WAFA that the occupation forces stormed the town, deployed infantry units in its streets, and fired stun grenades.

MSF’s report turns these operational details into a call for action, saying MSF calls for an immediate halt to measures contributing to forced displacement and to a system of annexation, including “prolonged military presence, movement restrictions, destruction, brutal repression, and denial of access to basic services”.

It says “We call on third states to go beyond mere verbal condemnations,” and it urges them to “exert real pressure on Israeli authorities to end the excessive use of force,” while also calling for “urgent to lift movement restrictions that block access to essential services and humanitarian aid.”