KUWAIT: Kuwait strongly condemns the Zionist occupation forces’ aggression against a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, which resulted in the martyrdom and injury of many Palestinians, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. Kuwait categorically rejected this “blatant escalation and ongoing assaults carried out by the occupation forces against the Palestinian people, which represent a new series of their systematic violations of international humanitarian law and international agreements,” the ministry added in a statement.

Kuwait, it said, called anew on the international community and UN Security Council to intervene and live up to their political, legal and humanitarian responsibilities to stop this aggression and provide international protection for the Palestinian people in line with the international law. A car ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv wounded seven people Tuesday before the suspect was shot dead, on the second day of the Zionist entity’s biggest military operation in years in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the “heroic” attack as “an initial response to crimes against our people in the Jenin camp” where Zionist forces had killed 10 people on Monday. The Tel Aviv attack came as the army pushed on with its operation in Jenin in the northern West Bank that has left 10 Palestinians dead, more than 100 in custody, and thousands displaced from their homes. Explosions were heard from the camp on Tuesday and a drone hovered overhead, an AFP correspondent reported.

The Jenin raid, launched early Monday under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, employed hundreds of troops as well as drone strikes and army bulldozers that ripped up streets and crushed cars. “In the last five years, this is the worst raid,” said Qasem Benighader, a nurse at a hospital morgue. The Palestinian foreign ministry labelled the escalation “open war against the people of Jenin”. Around 3,000 people had fled their homes in the refugee camp, said deputy governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu Al-Roub, adding they would be housed in schools and other shelters.

The United Nations said the military operation disrupted water and electricity to “large areas” of the refugee camp, a crowded urban area home to some 18,000 people. Imad Jabarin, one of those leaving the rubble-strewn camp, said “all aspects of life have been destroyed, there is no electricity and no communications... we are cut off from the world to some extent”. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” about the violence and urged respect for international humanitarian law, a spokesman said.

The United States said its ally the Zionist entity had a right to “defend its people against... terrorist groups” but called for protection of civilians. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Zionist forces to “demonstrate restraint in its operation and for all parties to avoid further escalation in both the West Bank and Gaza”. Germany on Tuesday insisted on the Zionist entity’s right to self-defense but urged it to observe “proportionality”. The German foreign ministry said it was watching the latest flare-up of violence in the region with “great concern”.

However, a ministry spokesman said in a statement that “the principle under international law of proportionality must be respected”. In the Zionist-blockaded Gaza Strip, protesters burned tyres near the border fence with the Zionist entity. The Zionist entity has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967. Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Zionists in settlements considered illegal under international law. The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want the Zionist entity to withdraw from all land it seized in 1967 and to dismantle all settlements. – Agencies