Palestinian death toll in West Bank's Jenin climbed to 10 as Israel continued its biggest military operation for years in the occupied territory for a second day on Tuesday.
The military raid has forced thousands to flee their homes as the government said it struck the Jenin refugee camp at the center of the violence "with great strength."
The raid, launched under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government, targeted the northern city of Jenin and employed armored vehicles, army bulldozers and drone strikes.
On Tuesday morning, shops were shuttered in Jenin, with very few people on the streets littered with debris and burned roadblocks from the previous day's fighting.
Drones hummed overhead, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter said.
In the city's refugee camp – an urban community that was home to 18,000 people – multiple streets were ripped up leaving broken electricity cables, oil, and pools of water apparently after an Israeli anti-bomb bulldozer passed.
The Israeli army said its raid in Jenin had continued overnight into Tuesday, with forces acting to "neutralize" an underground shaft allegedly used to store explosives in the refugee camp.
Prior to this operation, Israel had already stepped up raids in the northern West Bank, which has seen a recent spate of attacks on Israelis as well as Jewish settler violence targeting Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has worsened since last year and escalated further under the Netanyahu coalition government that includes extreme-right allies.
"In the last five years, this is the worst raid," Qasem Benighader, a nurse at a hospital morgue said, noting many patients with bullet wounds and injuries from explosives.
Impoverished
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli troops did "not intend to stay in the camp," but "we are getting ready for the more severe situation" of prolonged fighting.
A total of 10 people were killed and 100 others wounded, 20 of them seriously, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
A wounded Israeli soldier was evacuated by a military helicopter.
Since the start of the operation about 3,000 people had fled their homes in the Jenin refugee camp, the deputy governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Roub told AFP, adding arrangements were being made to house them in schools and other shelters in Jenin city.
In the Monday night darkness, women carried their youngest children while older ones lugged belongings through the streets.
Jenin resident Badr Shagoul told AFP: "I saw them taking bulldozers into the camp, they were destroying buildings ... These were people's homes."
The army said soldiers and gunmen had exchanged fire at a mosque in the camp, and weapons and explosives were later found in the building.
Another camp resident, Mahmoud Hawashin, predicted that "if there is more Palestinian bloodshed, there will be more Israeli bloodshed."
The United Nations says Jenin camp has "one of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty" among West Bank camps, and the military operation disrupted water and electricity to "large areas" of it.
In the meanwhile, Israel Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told reporters that it was striking Jenin "with great strength."
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the escalation "an open war against the people of Jenin."
The Jenin area is nominally controlled by President Mahmud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
The ruling Fatah party declared a general strike affecting private businesses and other sectors, and which saw all Palestinian Authority employees remaining home.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is "deeply concerned" about the violence, and called for the respect of international humanitarian law, a spokesman said in a statement.
Neighboring Jordan raised similar concerns and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) urged "the immediate halt of repeated and escalating campaigns against the Palestinian people."
Türkiye. in the meantime, said it was deeply concerned about the new wave of violence in the region and urged Israeli authorities to act with common sense and stop such actions.
The United States, however, defended its ally Israel saying it had a right to defend its people.
'Strengthen settlements'
The Arab League was to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss "an Arab mobilization to counter the Israeli attack on Jenin."
On Monday, the army said it had struck an alleged "joint operations center" of a group called the Jenin Brigade, a weapons depot, an "observation and reconnaissance" site and a hideout.
In the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, protesters burned tires near the border fence with Israel.
Israel 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 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.
The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want Israel to withdraw from all land it seized in 1967 and to dismantle all Jewish settlements.
Netanyahu, however, has pledged to "strengthen settlements" and expressed no interest in reviving peace talks, moribund since 2014.
At least 187 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed this year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.
The numbers compare with at least 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories in all of 2022, which was the deadliest in seven years for Palestinians.