Tuesday marked the start of the second day of the Israel Defense Forces' stepped-up security operation in Jenin, which appeared to be on pace to dispel the notion that Jenin was a terrorist stronghold beyond the control of the Israeli military.
The raid revealed some of the terrorist networks that had previously made Jenin so difficult for routine Israeli security missions, which included local agents as well as members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas: War rooms, vast quantities of explosives concealed in subterranean bunkers, hundreds of guns, the beginnings of a rocket manufacturing industry, and operatives who received radio transmissions and video feeds from all across the city to coordinate the actions of gunmen.
An IDF force the size of a brigade that is made up primarily of special operations forces and supported by unmanned aerial vehicle weaponry is gradually eliminating these threats, which the defense industry has collectively nicknamed "terror infrastructure," since it entered the city overnight on Sunday.
By midday on Monday, ten Palestinian fighters were dead, and the vast bulk of the hundreds of terrorist gunmen who were still alive chose to hide underground rather than engage the IDF, who had shocked them by storming the city from several directions. Numerous suspected terrorists have been detained.
There were no reports of noncombatant casualties as of Tuesday afternoon, and the IDF let residents of Jenin Camp to flee the operation. Hagari emphasized that air power was employed sparingly and specifically to defend IDF ground forces.
None of the civilian locations were harmed by the strike because small-diameter explosives were used.
According to Hagari, a mosque in the Jenin camp was later discovered to have been utilized as a cover for terrorist operations, with a tunnel excavated underneath it and a weapons storage facility set up there.
In addition, approximately 100,000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria worked in Israel, which is significant given that there was no curfew in Jenin and that 2,000 residents of the city commuted to work there on Sunday.
Further such action will be required as long as the authority vacuum in the Jenin and Nablus areas persists because PIJ, Hamas, Iran, and local terrorist groups will undoubtedly fill the void.
