ISRAEL launched a massive raid in the occupied West Bank early today with drones and hundreds of troops leaving at least eight Palestinians dead and dozens injured.

The brutal attack on the densely populated Jenin refugee camp, home to more than 15,000 people, was the largest attack against the Palestinians by the Israelis during more than a year of almost daily raids.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the military blocked roads within the camp, took over houses and buildings and set up snipers on rooftops. 

Residents said that electricity was cut off in some parts and military bulldozers ploughed through narrow streets, damaging buildings as they cleared the way for Israeli forces. 

Wafa said that one of the buildings hit by the deadly Israeli attack was the Jenin Freedom Theatre, where one child was seriously injured by shrapnel. 

“There are bulldozers destroying the streets, snipers are inside and on roofs of houses, drones are hitting houses and Palestinians are being killed in the streets,” said Jamal Huweil, a political activist in the camp.

“They can destroy the refugee camp but will fail again because the only solution is the political solution in which a Palestinian state is established and the occupation ends,” he said.

The Palestinians and neighbouring Jordan and Egypt and the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Co-operation have all condemned the latest violence.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the operation was “proceeding as planned,” but gave no indication when the attack would end.

Lynn Hastings, the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator in the Palestinian areas, said on Twitter that she was “alarmed by the scale of Israeli forces’ operation.”

She said that the UN was mobilising humanitarian aid.

In a separate incident, another Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Health Ministry said.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said: “Our Palestinian people will not kneel, will not surrender, will not raise the white flag, and will remain steadfast on their land in the face of this brutal aggression.”

The Jenin camp and an adjacent town of the same name have been a flashpoint as the Israelis have escalated their violence towards the Palestinians since spring 2022.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen accused Iran of being behind the violence by funding Palestinian resistance groups.

Mr Cohen insisted that the latest “operation” against the Palestinians was being conducted in a “targeted manner” to avoid civilian casualties.