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Jenin Refugee Camp, at Center of Israeli Raid

An Israeli armored vehicle is stationed at the end of a blocked-off street during an ongoing military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 4, 2023. (AFP)
An Israeli armored vehicle is stationed at the end of a blocked-off street during an ongoing military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 4, 2023. (AFP)
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Jenin Refugee Camp, at Center of Israeli Raid

An Israeli armored vehicle is stationed at the end of a blocked-off street during an ongoing military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 4, 2023. (AFP)
An Israeli armored vehicle is stationed at the end of a blocked-off street during an ongoing military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 4, 2023. (AFP)

Jenin refugee camp, one of the most crowded and impoverished in the occupied West Bank, is synonymous with Palestinian militancy and resistance against Israel which views it as a "terrorism" hub.

In recent years it has been the site of fierce fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.

This week, Israel launched what it called an "extensive counterterrorism effort" targeting the camp, which has so far killed 10 Palestinians and wounded dozens more.

Refuge for displaced Palestinians

The camp was established in 1953 to house some of those among the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 when Israel was created, an event Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe".

Today some 18,000 people live in the camp in the northern West Bank. It is just 0.43 square kilometers (0.16 of a square mile) in size, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Over time, the camp's original tents have been replaced by concrete, and it now resembles something closer to a neighborhood.

A symbol of Palestinian resistance

Jenin camp resident Zakaria Zubeidi rose to be a senior figure in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.

For years, he operated out of the camp and was on Israel's most-wanted list.

Zubeidi escaped from Israel's Gilboa prison with five other Palestinians in 2021, sparking a days-long manhunt, and he is lauded by Palestinians as a hero. He is still alive and in jail.

In 2022, Raad Hazem, another resident of the camp, killed three Israelis in a shooting spree in Tel Aviv's busy Dizengoff Street nightlife district, before being shot dead after a massive manhunt.

Images of Hazem, Zubeidi and those dubbed "martyrs" by the Palestinians after they were killed by Israeli forces plaster the camp's walls and hang from the archways which mark the entrance to the camp's narrow streets.

The 2002 battle for Jenin

The camp was a hive of activity during the second "intifada" or uprising of the early 2000s.

In 2002, the army besieged the camp for more than a month amid fierce fighting that killed 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers.

More than 400 homes were destroyed in the operation, according to UNRWA, and more than a quarter of the camp's population was left homeless.

Shireen Abu Akleh killed

Veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed on May 11, 2022 while covering an Israeli raid on the camp for Al Jazeera television, sparking international condemnation.

The Israeli army later admitted one of its soldiers probably shot the reporter -- who was wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest marked "Press" -- having mistaken her for a militant.

Deteriorating security

Over the past 18 months, the security situation in the camp has deteriorated, with the Palestinian Authority having little real presence there. Israel's military says that at least 50 shooting attacks have originated from in and around Jenin so far this year.

The deadly attacks on Israeli targets have prompted a fierce response, with Israel's forces carrying out a string of raids on the flashpoint refugee camp in the first half of 2023.

Israel says "The Jenin Brigade", a local group it alleges is backed by Iran and counts members of Gaza's rulers Hamas, Islamic jihad and Fatah within its ranks, is behind the attacks.

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War Reaches Lebanon's Far North After Rare, Deadly Israeli Strike

First responders and locals search at the site of an Israeli strike in Ain Yaacoub, Akkar region, on November 12, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. - AFP
First responders and locals search at the site of an Israeli strike in Ain Yaacoub, Akkar region, on November 12, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. - AFP
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War Reaches Lebanon's Far North After Rare, Deadly Israeli Strike

First responders and locals search at the site of an Israeli strike in Ain Yaacoub, Akkar region, on November 12, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. - AFP
First responders and locals search at the site of an Israeli strike in Ain Yaacoub, Akkar region, on November 12, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. - AFP

A day after Israeli warplanes flattened their building, Lebanese residents helped rescuers scour the rubble for survivors, still reeling from the rare strike in the country's far north.

The bombing killed at least eight people in Ain Yaacoub, one of the northernmost villages Israel has struck, far from Lebanon's war-ravaged southern border.

"They hit a building where more than 30 people lived without any evacuation warning," said Mustafa Hamza, who lives near the site of the strike. "It's an indescribable massacre."

Following Monday’s strike on Ain Yaacoub, residents joined rescuers, using bare hands to sift through dust and chunks of concrete, hoping to find survivors.

The health ministry said the death toll was expected to rise, AFP reported.

On the ground, people could be seen pulling body parts from the rubble in the morning, following a long night of search operations.

In near-darkness, rescuers had struggled to locate survivors, using mobile phone lights and car headlamps in a remote area where national grid power is scarce.

For years, Syrians fleeing war in their home country, along with more recently displaced Lebanese escaping Israeli strikes, sought refuge in the remote Akkar region near the Syrian border, once seen as a haven.

"The situation is dire. People are shocked," Hamza told AFP. "People from all over the region have come here to try to help recover the victims."

The village, inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslims and Christians, lies far from the strongholds of Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim movement.

A security source said Monday's air strike targeted a Hezbollah member who had relocated with his family to the building in Ain Yaacoub from south Lebanon.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the strike was aimed at "a Hezbollah terrorist" and specified that the missile used sought to minimise civilian harm.

Local official Rony al-Hage told AFP that it was the northernmost Israeli attack since the full-blown Israel-Hezbollah war erupted in September.

After Israel ramped up its campaign of air raids, it also sent ground troops into south Lebanon.

"The people who were in my house were my uncle, his wife, and my sisters... A Syrian woman and her children who had been living here for 10 years, were also killed," said Hashem Hashem, the son of the building's owner.

His relatives had fled Israel's onslaught on south Lebanon seeking a safe haven in the Akkar region more than a month ago, he said.

The Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon has displaced at least 1.3 million people, nearly 900,000 of them inside the country, the United Nations migration agency says.

Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds have repeatedly targeted buildings where displaced civilians lived, with Lebanese security officials often telling AFP the targets were Hezbollah operatives.

On Sunday, Lebanon said an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat -- a rare strike north of the capital.

Earlier this month, authorities said an Israeli strike on a residential building killed at least 20 people in Barja, a town south of Beirut that is outside Hezbollah's area of influence.

The war erupted after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

More than 3,240 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the health ministry, with most of the deaths coming since late September.