The sound of gunfire and explosions filled the air as residents of the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank hauled their belongings down the muddy pathway.
Smoke billowed from multiple areas in the camp’s Al-Hadaf neighborhood, while a bulldozer razed a building in the distance and Israeli military convoys drove past nearby.
Either way, the men, women, children and elderly trudging through the mud-soaked pathways said they had no choice but to flee the camp, a sprawling area of narrow alleys that has long been a bastion of militant factions and is now front and center of the IDF’s Operation “Iron Wall.”
Israel launched the operation two days after the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire began, saying it was aimed at eliminating “terrorists and terror infrastructure” and “ensuring that terrorism does not return to the camp after the operation is over – the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had killed “more than 10 terrorists, arrested about 20 wanted individuals, and confiscated many other weapons and ammunition” during its operation in Jenin.
But rights groups have raised concerns that fleeing civilians have been caught in the crossfire.
Some of those now fleeing the camp said Israeli drones carrying loudspeakers had ordered them to leave, then guided them out.
Mousa Al-Sharaa, 45, fled Thursday with his elderly mother, who he had to carry at times as they left the camp on foot.
The streets were empty as they left and the Israeli army was “spread around everywhere,” he said.
Some residents said the military had told them they could return in seven days. Others said troops had told them they could not return at all.
Asked if he would return, Al-Sharaa said soldiers had warned him against the idea.
“They told us: don’t come back, we’ll make a boom out of the whole camp,” he said.
Khawla Asaad, 55, who was born in the camp, said she had evacuated four days ago amid heavy gunfire and was now staying with a friend nearby.
There had been no water or electricity for days before she left, she said, adding that most other people had left too.
As the Israeli operation continued into its fourth day, Thameen Al-Kheetan, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, said the commission was deeply concerned by the “use of unlawful lethal force” in Jenin, including “multiple airstrikes and apparently random shooting at unarmed residents attempting to flee or find safety.”
The UNHCR said it had verified that at least 12 Palestinians had been killed and 40 injured by Israeli security forces since Tuesday, most of them reportedly unarmed.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, the UN said, Israeli security forces had “shut down entrances to major Palestinian cities such as Hebron, closed checkpoints, and initiated long, individual searches of vehicles at those that remained open.”
In 2002, the Israeli military occupied the camp after 10 days of intensive fighting, according to the UN, during which time more than 400 houses were destroyed and over a quarter of the camp’s population was displaced.