UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday expressed concerns over the Israeli counterterrorism operation in Jenin.
“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the developments in Jenin. He affirms that all military operations must be conducted with full respect for international humanitarian law,” said a spokesperson for Guterres in a statement.
Earlier, the White House stated that the Biden administration was watching the operation "with concern" and called on the Palestinian Authority not to follow through on its announcement that security cooperation with Israel would be stopped.
A senior defense official, meanwhile, estimated that the military operation in Jenin would continue for about another 24 hours, assuming there is no major escalation from the Palestinian Arab side, Channel 12 News reported.
The official said that "we did not come to conquer the [Jenin] refugee camp, this is not an operation against the Palestinian Authority, the target is the terrorist organizations of Jenin."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the military operation in Jenin and said that "the IDF last night launched an extensive operation against terrorist targets in Jenin. In recent months, Jenin has become a haven for terrorism - we are putting an end to it."
"Our forces entered Jenin into the nests of terrorists - they eliminate terrorists, they arrest wanted persons, they destroy headquarters and seize many weapons, and they do another thing - they destroy laboratories on an almost industrial scale. Laboratories from which they made explosives and IEDs intended for the slaughter and murder of Israeli civilians. They are doing all of this in one of the densest places on earth, and they are doing it with minimal harm to civilians up to this moment, and no harm to those not involved, and this is the directive - to look after the security of our forces and also to avoid harming innocent people as much as possible," Netanyahu said.
The Prime Minister also said that "I have been saying for some time that we are dealing with changing the equation against terrorism, we did it two and a half years ago in Operation Guardian of the Walls against Hamas, we set it back a decade. We did it a few weeks ago in Operation Shield and Arrow, in which we eliminated senior Islamic Jihad leaders, and we are doing it today in Jenin through a combination of surprise measures, power, and changing the rules. This also adds to the deterrence capacity of the State of Israel, both to protect against additional terrorist attacks and to change the equation in the region."