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SAN SALVADOR: In this July 28, 2017 file photo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks. —AP
SAN SALVADOR: In this July 28, 2017 file photo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks. —AP

Sessions vows crackdown on classified information leaks

JENIN: Zionist security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale and significant military operation”. The action, launched a day after US President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Zionist settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against fighters.

The move into Jenin, where the Zionist army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank. The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counterterrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weekslong operation by Palestinian security forces in self-rule areas of the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major center of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its reach in the West Bank over recent years, called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against the Zionist entity. As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media. The spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, Anwar Rajab, said in a statement Zionist forces had “opened fire on civilians and security forces, resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel, one of whom is in critical condition”.

Palestinian health services said at least nine Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded as the Zionist raid began, a week after a Zionist air strike in the

Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more. Since the Oct 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Zionist raids. Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP the operation was “an invasion of the (refugee) camp”. “It came quickly, Apache helicopters in the sky and (Zionist) military vehicles everywhere,” he added.

Hardline pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Zionist policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a “strong and ongoing campaign” against militant groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers”. Smotrich earlier welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration in expanding settlements.

Around 700,000 Zionist settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land the Zionist entity captured in 1967. Most countries consider Zionist settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule over some territory in the West Bank under Zionist military occupation.

In the days leading up to the Zionist military operation, Palestinians throughout the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza. Late on Monday, bands of Zionist settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of Al-Funduq, an area where three Zionists were killed in a shooting earlier this month.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in Al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said were aimed at “dismembering the West Bank”. “We call on the new American administration to intervene to stop these crimes and Israeli policies that will not bring peace and security to anyone,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office said in a statement. – Agencies

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