Israel escalated its raids in the West bank yesterday as its offensive there entered its fourth day. Residents told Middle East Eye that Israeli soldiers forcibly removed Palestinians from their homes in Jenin, and many others were trapped in their homes without access to food, water or electricity, as Israeli forces maintain a tight siege on the city. By Aug. 30 evening, the Israeli military had withdrawn from Tulkarm and Tubas but remained in Jenin, which then became the main focus of the assault. Palestinian media reported intense fighting on Saturday between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters, as Israeli military bulldozers caused widespread destruction to the city’s roads and civilian infrastructure.
“We are cut off from the world,” Taher al-Saadi, a Jenin resident, told AFP. “The water is cut off. The electricity is cut off, the sewage system is no longer working. All the infrastructure is destroyed, we no longer have any services that work.
“The Israelis are besieging the hospitals and cutting off the city from the refugee camp, which has become a military zone with no access,” he alleged. “Neither the civil defense, nor the ambulances, nor the journalists can go and see what is happening there.”
The IDF reported that an Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded during fierce clashes with Hamas gunmen in Jenin on Saturday morning. “We are dismantling the terrorism that comes from the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria” (as Israeli fanatic settlers refer to the West Bank), Halevi was quoted by the IDF as saying while meeting with IDF commanders in Jenin.
