[16] On 27 January, UN experts stated "We deplore the Israeli army’s latest violent attack against the Jenin Refugee Camp, and the killing and wounding of Palestinians on Thursday.
[22][23] The Israeli military launched what it called Operation Breakwater[24] involving near nightly incursions into Jenin to conduct searches, arrests and home demolitions in the pursuit of armed Palestinian factions.
[27] Jenin drew world attention in May when Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting on an army raid in its crowded refugee camp.
[15] Just before 7 am on 26 January 2023, as residents were preparing to go to work or school, an undercover unit in civilian dress penetrated the refugee camp using private cars with Palestinian plates.
[27] The stated purpose of the incursion was to detain Islamic Jihad militants that Israel claimed had been involved previously in planning and carrying out shooting attacks on Israeli targets.
[8][33] One of the oldest camp residents, Ziad Miri’ee, alerted by sudden gunfire, peaked out and observed an Israeli soldier shooting through his car to hit a young local man.
[34] The unit surrounded an apartment in the camp's Joret al-Dahab neighbourhood, a slum of sandstone houses,[34] where several resistance fighters were sheltering and attacked it with anti-tank missiles and explosives.
Their apartment was then targeted by Palestinian counter-fire and the Israelis sawed the window bars in his bedroom and, from this second position, fired a rocket into the building sheltering the militants, causing a loud explosion.
[8] Majida Obaid, an elderly woman (61 years old) and mother of six, was shot through the neck while watching the fight from her bedroom window and died after managing to recite the shahada, a prayer professing one's faith.
It failed to achieve its aims, - seizing two militants suspected of trying to shoot diners in a restaurant in the nearby Israeli West Bank settlement of Vered Yeriho - while leaving seven injured Palestinians in its wake.
[40][41] On 22 February, a similar attack consisting of a large contingent of Israeli forces conducted an incursion into the heart of Nablus, and killed two militants reportedly linked to the Lions' Den.
[45] The deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, referred to the events in Jenin as a "massacre" committed by "the occupation",[5] and stated that an armed response "will not take long".
[46] Adam Bouloukos, director of UNRWA Affairs in the West Bank, stated that the raid had left children in Jenin traumatized, calling it an 'invasion' that violated 'not only international law but common decency.
[52] Syria's Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry stated: "Israel, the occupying power and its terrorist government, adds this massacre to its history of acts of aggression and killing, taking advantage of the impunity umbrella provided by successive US administrations.
Unlawful killings help maintain Israel's apartheid system and constitute crimes against humanity, as do other serious and ongoing violations by Israeli authorities such as administrative detention and forcible transfer.