Israeli Forces Leave after Failing to Achieve Objective in Raid on Jenin

The withdrawal came after Palestinians confronted the invading forces, which used machine gunfire against the Palestinians on Saturday morning.

Ahmad Saadi from the Jenin refugee camp was shot in the head and chest and lost his life immediately, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.

Two of the wounded Palestinians were hit in the abdomen by live bullets, including a 19-year-old girl, and one was hit by shrapnel in the head, while the others were reported in stable condition.

The Israeli regime’s forces launched the large-scale attack in Jenin and its refugee camp to target the residence of Raad Hazem, who attacked and killed three Israeli settlers and injured others in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening before he was shot and killed in nearby Jaffa nine hours later.

According to witnesses, the Israeli forces surrounded the Hazem family’s house and said that they had to come out of the house and turn themselves in.

Palestinian media reported that the Israeli forces failed to arrest Fathi Hazem, the father of Raad Hazem due to the relentless resistance of Palestinians in the Jenin camp.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Hamas resistance movement, and Khaled Meshaal, the head of the group’s political bureau abroad, called Raad’s father on Friday to congratulate him on his son’s heroism.

They said operations like the one Raad carried out are the means by which Palestine and its holy sites will be liberated.

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called on Palestinians to foil any Israeli plot against the residents of Jenin.

“The Israeli threats against Jenin city and its residents will not break the will of the city’s free youths,” he said.

Following the Saturday raid, Hamas issued a statement to laud the resistance of “Palestinian freedom fighters” in Jenin camp and call for intensified resistance against the Israeli occupation across the West Bank.

“We hail Palestinian freedom fighters in Jenin camp for courageously fending off the Israeli occupation army and its special forces and defending the house of Palestinian martyr Raad Hazem,” the statement read.

“We mourn the death of Palestinian martyr Ahmad Saadi, who fell while confronting the invading Israeli occupation forces on Saturday morning,” it said, adding, “The blood of Palestinian martyrs who have fallen during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will not go in vain. Palestinian freedom fighters are committed to defending the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.  “

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett granted all Israeli “security forces full freedom” of military operations in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli military chief Aviv Kochavi also ordered an increase in military operations in the West Bank following the Thursday shooting attack.

The regime in Tel Aviv has escalated its crackdown on Palestinians since the beginning of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, arresting a number of Palestinians in occupied East al-Quds, desecrating al-Aqsa mosque, issuing new restrictions on the Palestinian people’s entry into the mosque, and ordering the demolition of Palestinian homes and agricultural facilities.

Hamas has already warned Israel against pushing forward with its open aggression against Palestinians, particularly Muslim worshipers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound during Ramadan.

Last May, similar Israeli atrocities against Palestinians led to a war between the Israeli military and the Gaza-based resistance groups, who rose up in protest in solidarity with their fellow countrymen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

During the war, the fourth wholesale military campaign by the occupying regime against the densely-populated Palestinian enclave, the regime killed at least 260 Palestinians, including 66 children.