Israeli military forces have raided a refugee camp in the northern West Bank, igniting the fiercest day of fighting in years as Palestinian militants detonated roadside bombs and Israeli helicopters struck Palestinian gunmen to rescue troops trapped in the hours-long fight.
At least five Palestinians were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and more than 90 were wounded, Palestinian health officials said.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group claimed three of those killed as its militants. Eight Israeli soldiers were also wounded, the army said.
The Israeli military said forces stormed into the Jenin refugee camp in the early morning to arrest two wanted militants, and faced fierce resistance.
Palestinian militants said they ambushed Israeli armoured vehicles with explosive devices, disabling several with troops trapped inside.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht described Palestinian militants’ use of at least one powerful roadside bomb as “very unusual and dramatic”. Five mangled vehicles were stuck in the firefight for hours, requiring the military to dispatch helicopters as part of an elaborate evacuation operation.
It was the first such use of a helicopter gunship in the occupied West Bank since the second Palestinian uprising around two decades ago, Israeli media reported. The highly militarised Jenin refugee camp witnessed some of the biggest battles at the time.
At least one Apache helicopter fired missiles at Palestinian gunmen to try to clear the area while security forces worked to extract the trapped vehicles, the Israeli army said.
The local branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad based in Jenin said its fighters opened fire at the combat helicopter. The group praised the militants and warned Israel to “reconsider its calculations before its soldiers set foot on Jenin’s land”.
The Israeli army said the Palestinian gunfire caused minor damage to the spinning tail rotor of a helicopter.
“They were shooting at anything and everything that moved,” hospital director Tawfik al-Shobaki said of Israeli forces.
As the Israeli military eventually withdrew its damaged vehicles from the camp in the late afternoon, Palestinians ventured out to assess the heavy damage and bury their dead.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified those killed as Khaled Asasa, 21, Qassam Abu Sariya, 29, Qais Jabarin, 21, Ahmed Daraghmeh, 19, and 15-year-old Ahmed Saqr.
Of the 91 Palestinians wounded, at least 12 were in critical condition, hospital officials said. Wissam Bakar, director of Jenin Government Hospital, said a 15-year-old girl was among the critically wounded.
Islamic Jihad said Qais Jabarin, Qassam Abu Sariya and Ahmed Daraghmeh were militants.
A Palestinian cameraman, Hazem Nasser, wearing a clearly marked press vest, was among those seriously wounded in the fighting. His colleagues said he was shot when a building — where journalists had camped out to cover the clashes — came under Israeli fire.
“Of course there was a lot of shooting and explosions, but everyone knew we were journalists covering it,” fellow freelance journalist Alaa Badarneh said. “All of a sudden we were surrounded and the army started shooting toward us.”
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said that he saw the military shoot directly at Mr Nasser.
Last year, prominent Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid into the Jenin refugee camp. The army has said she was likely to have been killed by Israeli fire.
The Israeli military said eight members of the paramilitary border police and the army suffered light and moderate wounds. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to wounded troops in the hospital, praising the forces and saying Israel was “striking terror with strength and determination”.
Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official, accused Israel of waging “a fierce and open war” against the Palestinian people.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry denounced the “continued escalation against the Palestinians”, saying the violence undermined efforts to reduce regional tensions.
Later on Monday, the Israeli military said two suspected Palestinian assailants rammed their car into troops manning a checkpoint near Jenin, lightly wounding two soldiers.
Israeli forces opened fire at the vehicle, wounding the two Palestinians, health officials said.
