Israel carries out unusual airstrike in Jenin - target believed to be Hamas battalion commander

An Israeli Air Force aircraft struck a target in the Palestinian city of Jenin on Tuesday evening, as part of a joint IDF and ISA (Shin Bet) operation. 

While the military did not announce the target of the strike, Palestinian media reported that the target of the assassination was Abdallah Jalamneh, commander of Hamas' Jenin Battalion. 

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, six people were killed in the attack and several others wounded. 

The Palestinian health ministry confirms six people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes, the first in the Jenin area in a month-and-a-half. Among the killed are believed to be senior commanders in the Jenin battalion. https://t.co/MHBUHMIPFr pic.twitter.com/llawmvpt1c

— Ariel Oseran (@ariel_oseran) January 14, 2025

The event is significant. For the past three weeks, the IDF has refrained from operating in Jenin after members of the Palestinian Authority's security forces began to operate against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad battalions there. The strike was the first such targeted killing in Jenin in about a month and a half. 

The IDF has allowed PA security officials and organizations to try to regain their governance in Jenin following a recent increase in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad activity there. While there has been no official confirmation, it is also believed that Israeli security forces have renewed, at least partially, their security cooperation with the PA security forces to enable the PA operations in Jenin. 

The decision by the PA security forces to engage in policing activity within Jenin, and a recent statement by the PA condemning Hamas, are believed to be related to the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, and are an attempt to show that the PA is willing to fight terrorism and engage in “reforms.”

A military source said that the decision to carry out the strike on Tuesday evening was due to operational considerations based on information provided by the Shin Bet. The security establishment refused to disclose the identity of the target of the assassination or the specific reasons behind the decision to carry out the targeted killing at this time. 

Military leaders have indicated that if a ceasefire is implemented in Gaza, it will make it possible to divert additional forces for fighting Hamas in the Palestinian Territories of Judea and Samaria. 

Israeli political commentator Amit Segal wrote on social media that "the IDF eliminated in an airstrike in Jenin the murderers of the three Israelis from the attack in Kedumim.” 

However, Itay Blumenthal, the military correspondent for Kan News, responded in a tweet, saying, "Despite the reports and to my great regret – at this stage the attack was not aimed at the terrorists who carried out the shooting attack in Funduk in which three Israelis were murdered. That's what a security source told me.” 

Last Monday, three Israelis were murdered in a terror attack in the village of Funduk, between Karnei Shomron and Kedumim in Samaria. The terrorists are believed to have come from the Jenin area and apparently fled back there after the shooting. 

The attack took place when terrorists opened fire at a bus and a car on Route 55 and then fled. Three Israelis, Sgt. Elad Winkelstein, 35, from Ein HaNetziv, Rachel Cohen, 73, and her sister-in-law, Aliza Reisz, 70, were murdered in the attack.