Update on the situation in Tulkarem
Our colleague from Al Jazeera Arabic, Laith Ja’ar, has an update from Tulkarem:
- Israeli forces are still besieging the camp from all sides, conducting extensive search operations in civilian houses.
- According to local sources from inside Nur Shams refugee camp, specifically from the al-Manshiyya neighbourhood, five houses have been burning, injuring dozens of people.
- Israeli forces prevented rescue teams and the Palestinian Red Crescent from entering the camp to put out the fires and evacuate the injured.
- The Israeli army claims that there were explosive devices inside houses it had targeted.
A car stands under the destruction caused to a residential building by an Israeli raid in Nur Shams camp near the city of Tulkarem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
Israeli government not motivated by ‘security’
Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli Knesset, says the assault on the occupied West Bank has nothing to do with Israel’s security.
“This government, led by fascists like Netanyahu … Smotrich and others, they are not interested in the security of anyone including the Israelis,” he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.
Cassif added that the government’s “negligence” in its handling of the captives situation.
“Had they had any kind of commitment to the security of the Israelis, the first thing that this government would have done is to release the hostages, but they are not interested in that,” he said. “They are interested in the subjugation of the decisive plan, which boils down to annexing the Palestinian, the occupied Palestinian territories, deporting the Palestinians from their homeland and killing them.”
People in Israel who oppose the war ‘need support from international community’
Cassif says Israelis who oppose the war on Gaza and the assault on the occupied West Bank face “political persecution”.
“There is an opposition – not big enough – but there is a Jewish-Arab opposition within Israel. But we do need the international community to support us,” the Israeli Knesset member told Al Jazeera.
He criticised US “hypocrisy” regarding the war.
“On the one hand, the Biden administration and its spokespeople speak against the continuation of the massacre in Gaza but at the same time continuously arm Israel and veto a decision in the Security Council,” he said, adding that the war would be over “if the United States wanted that to stop”.
They are ‘shooting anyone who is moving’
Mohammed al-Atrash, a colleague from Al Jazeera Arabic reporting from Jenin, gives an update on the situation on the ground. Here are the main takeaways:
- Israeli snipers are placed on top of houses “shooting anyone who is moving”. This is how two people – out of nine – were killed in Jenin.
- Several areas were under curfew as Israeli soldiers inspected civilians’ houses.
- The Jenin Governmental Hospital is besieged with Israeli forces delaying an ambulance with a wounded person from reaching the facility.
