JERUSALEM — The Israeli army withdrew from the Qalandia refugee camp north of occupied East Jerusalem late Thursday after a nearly two-day military raid that left 51 Palestinians injured, Palestinian authorities said.
The Jerusalem Governorate said Israeli forces pulled out after an operation involving widespread raids, searches and detentions.
Israeli forces demolished commercial shops near the Qalandiya checkpoint on Thursday, before imposing a curfew on the neighboring town of Kafr Aqab and sealing off roads linking the area to Jerusalem.
Several homes and other buildings were seized and turned into detention and field interrogation centers during the operation, the governorate said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said the number of Palestinians injured since the raid began early Wednesday had risen to 51.
It said 35 people were hospitalized after severe beatings and six more were treated at the scene. One person was hit by a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Six others suffered tear gas inhalation, according to PRCS.
The organization said its ambulance crews had been blocked from reaching the wounded since late at night on Wednesday, though crews still managed to evacuate several patients, including people requiring kidney dialysis.
Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades at journalists stationed at the camp’s entrance and ordered them to leave.
Dozens of Palestinians, including children and women, were detained for field interrogations inside homes converted into makeshift holding sites, according to local Palestinian media.
Israeli forces also raided the city of Jenin on Thursday, shooting one Palestinian and assaulting another, according to PRCS.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said earlier Thursday that Israeli forces had detained or subjected more than 60 Palestinians, including women and children, to field interrogation.
The Israeli army launched the large-scale operation early Wednesday in Qalandia and the nearby town of Kafr Aqab, deploying dozens of military vehicles, bulldozers and drones.
It claimed the operation targeted armed individuals, “hostile infrastructure” and weapons possession and trafficking.
The Jerusalem Governorate said residents endured difficult humanitarian conditions during the raid.
Elsewhere north of occupied Jerusalem, Israeli authorities issued a military order to clear vegetation and uproot olive trees across about 2.5 dunums (0.6 acres) of Palestinian land in the town of Jaba to expand the illegal settlement road Route 437.
Israeli forces carry out near-daily military raids across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israeli army attacks and settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have intensified in the past months, moving in tandem with increased demolitions of Palestinian property and illegal seizure of their land.
Rights groups have recorded more than 11,000 Israeli military and settler attacks across the West Bank in the first half of this year alone – with more than 2,300 Palestinians forced from their homes due to settler violence and related restrictions.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, attacks by the Israeli army and Jewish settlers across the occupied West Bank have killed at least 1,182 Palestinians and injured around 13,000 others, according to official Palestinian figures.
Source: Saudi Gazette