Israel’s security chief says focus switching to West Bank – BBC.com

Lucy Williamson

BBC Middle East correspondent

Reporting fromJenin

Days into the Gaza ceasefire, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service has signalled that the country’s focus is switching to Palestinian armed groups in the occupied West Bank.

Ronen Bar said Israel was in the midst of a multi-front campaign, but that “right now, it’s Samaria’s [northern West Bank] time”.

Israeli forces have been carrying out a major military operation in and around the West Bank city of Jenin since Tuesday.

The Israeli army’s chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, has talked of bringing Jenin to “a different place” through continued military pressure there.

Army vehicles are currently controlling the entrance to Jenin’s main hospital, and have blocked access to Jenin refugee camp – home to both civilians and armed Palestinian groups.

The roads into the camp – some of them torn up by military bulldozers – are guarded by small groups of soldiers, who raised their weapons when we approached.

On Thursday, a stream of men, women and children left the camp, picking their way past the military vehicles and over the rubble of the road, to the sound of explosions and gunfire behind them.

“The situation is horrible,” said Adel, a taxi driver. “I live on al-Awda Street, and I’m the last one to leave. There’s no one there.”

Adel said the army had dropped leaflets in the camp, telling people to leave their homes.

“Everyone has to leave before 17:00,” he told me. “God knows what they’re going to do.”

Many of those leaving the camp on Thursday, clutching children, pets and plastic bags full of clothes, told us they had received instructions from the army to leave – either by announcements from drones or trucks, or through the leaflets.

The BBC has seen photos of leaflets said to have been dropped inside the camp, and heard recordings believed to be of the Israeli announcements, which appear to corroborate what the residents said.

But Israel’s government spokesman, David Mencer, told journalists in a briefing that there had been “no evacuation orders whatsoever” for the people of Jenin.

“People in Jenin not connected with terrorism are free to leave, to get away from our action,” he said. But he described reports of evacuation orders as “fake news, probably spread by supporters of Hamas”.

Israel says it aims to destroy the armed groups here – backed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – and stop them carrying out attacks against Israeli targets.

It is worried about the West Bank becoming the next focus for Iranian influence and arms.

But a show of force here after the ceasefire in Gaza also plays well with those in Israel who not only want to continue the war there, but want to annex the West Bank as well.

Twelve Palestinians are reported to have been killed in the operation and dozens injured, including two men suspected of murdering three Israelis in a shooting attack earlier this month.

Qutaiba Shalabi and Mohammed Nazzal were killed after a fierce gun battle with Israeli forces on Wednesday night in Burqin, just west of Jenin.

Hamas put out a statement claiming them as its fighters.

But civilians have also been killed during the operation.

Ahmed al-Shayeb owned a mobile phone shop in Jenin – a well-known businessman, not a fighter, locals said.

He was shot dead by Israeli forces, as he drove down a road near Jenin’s refugee camp, with his 10-year-old son Taym in the car.

“They started shooting, and a bullet hit him,” Taym told reporters at his father’s funeral on Wednesday.

“He said, ‘God, God,’ then the car hit the pavement. I saw two army vehicles coming toward us. They started to shoot towards the car, but I jumped out and ran away.”

Israel’s army says the incident is under review.

Many people here told us this raid felt different to the many others Israel has carried out since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

“It’s different this time – they’re striking everywhere. It’s like Gaza,” one man told me, as he left the camp on Wednesday.

Next to him, 52-year-old Kefah Sehwal said she had lost 15 members of her family in the past 15 months.

“After what happened to [Israeli forces] in Gaza, the reaction is here,” she told me. “They’re taking it out on us.”

Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has talked about a “shift in strategy” for this operation, saying the lesson from Gaza is not just to “eliminate terrorists”, as he put it, but to stop them coming back.

That plan didn’t work in Gaza. It’s not clear it’ll work in Jenin.