NAZARETH, (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Israeli War Minister Yisrael Katz announced on Sunday that Israeli occupation forces will remain in the Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank until at least the end of the current year.
In a statement, Katz claimed that “the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams were hotbeds of terrorism funded, armed, and directed by Iran as another front against Israel, and militants emerged from them to carry out armed operations.”
He added, “Following my field tours and meetings with officers and soldiers, I instructed the army to change its policy.”
Katz explained that the Israeli army had launched a severe assault on the refugee camps, “evacuated residents, eliminated terrorists (resistance fighters), dismantled and demolished terrorist infrastructure, and the Israeli army will remain in the camps at this stage under my orders until at least the end of the year.”
He further claimed, “There is no terrorism in the camps today, and the volume of terrorist alerts in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) has dropped by 80%. This is the correct model for fighting terrorism: to attack it and pursue it in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, and anywhere else.”
Alongside the genocide committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank have killed no fewer than 1,014 Palestinians and injured about 7,000 others, in addition to arresting more than 18,500 since October 2023, according to Palestinian data.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with US support, has been committing genocide in Gaza involving killing, starvation, destruction, and displacement, ignoring international calls and International Court of Justice orders to halt it. The genocide has left 61,369 Palestinians dead and 152,862 injured, most of them children and women, as well as more than 9,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced and a famine that has claimed many lives.
