Israeli troops withdrew from the city of Jenin and its refugee camp on Sept. 6 after ten days that marked the most intense fighting on the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and the ensuing Gaza war.
By late Friday, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) had yet to comment on whether its Jenin counter-terrorism operation was concluding or merely paused.
It also said it was investigating reports that a foreign national was killed in Beita on Friday when troops fired on what the IDF called “a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”
“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” the IDF said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the victim was Aysenur Eygi, 26, an American born in Turkey and also holding Turkish citizenship. The White House confirmed Eygi’s death but did not say whether the recent graduate of the University of Washington had been shot by Israeli troops.
She was reportedly shot during a weekly demonstration in Beita protesting a nearby Israeli settlement, Evyatar, recently legalized by the Israeli government.
Other Operations
The IDF did not comment on whether other operations on the West Bank, including those in Tubas and Far'a in the Jordan Valley and Tulkarem on the West Bank’s border with Israel proper, were also being concluded.The IDF, in a recap on social media of its recent activity in the Jenin area, said, “To date, 14 terrorists have been eliminated, over 30 suspects have been apprehended, approximately 30 explosives planted under roads were dismantled, and four aerial strikes were conducted in the area.”
Overall, fighting “with high intensity” in the West Bank over the previous week, the IDF eliminated 35 terrorists and arrested about 45 others.
It attacked “40 terror infrastructures” that included command and control centers disguised as schools, colleges, and humanitarian areas, it said.
Among the structures dismantled by security forces in Jenin, the IDF said, were an underground weapons storage facility beneath a mosque and an explosives-manufacturing lab.
“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” the IDF statement said.
Jenin’s head of Hamas, Wassem Hazem, was killed in the fighting, the IDF said. The force said he was responsible for shooting and explosive attacks in the Jenin area as well as terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, as many Israelis refer to the West Bank.
Palestinian health authorities—on the West Bank run by Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority there—say that 39 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s recent push on the West Bank, 21 of them in Jenin.
Tension in West Bank
Tensions between Palestinian and Jewish residents in the West Bank are frequent. Some of the tension involves land. Each side accuses the other of building illegal settlements.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative coalition, including members for whom Judea and Samaria are a priority, has accelerated government support of Jewish settlement there, including legalizing some previously unauthorized developments and designating spaces for more.
Most recently, a masked Jewish mob of about a hundred people attacked the Arab village of Jit, setting buildings and cars afire before IDF soldiers dispersed them. One Palestinian was killed. Four Israelis, three adults, and one juvenile, have been arrested so far.
