Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Yaron Buskila, Director of Operations for the think tank, the Israel Defense & Security Forum (IDSF), spoke Thursday morning on an Israeli morning radio show about the Jenin operation, and why he assumes the Israeli forces will be forced to enter Jenin again in the near future.
Buskila began his comments while referring to Yehuda Yitzhak, the lone Israeli soldier to be killed in the recent operation: "The fighting in Jenin is complex from all sides. Both from the terrorists' side and from our side. During the fighting, there are great complexities, and soldiers might be injured. It is currently being investigated by the forces and commanders, how the combat soldier was injured and unfortunately killed," he said.
As for the withdrawal of the troops from Jenin, Buskila said that "it is not a problem, however, it is as complex as entering and fighting itself and staying in the urban area. There are many dangers, there are challenges and there are also certain techniques that must be executed to ensure the troops (return) safely. To turn your back and go out you still have to remain vigilant at a very high level. It must be remembered that the commando brigade entered together with additional forces. Not everything is done perfectly, sometimes mistakes take place. In the end, an entire brigade fought in the Jenin area, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and managed to achieve impressive and significant achievements. The success here was very big."
"The brigade has completed the exit from Jenin and the Palestinian Authority (has reentered the city) which was one of the objectives of this operation. Returning order to the city from an administrative and security aspect as well, in an attempt to bring the security aspect into the city. The residents are also returning to their homes in the areas where there was fighting."
"At the beginning of the operation, a significant part of the terrorists fled to the more crowded part. Some used ambulances to escape and hide inside the hospitals and did not come into direct contact with the force. The IDF has not yet been able to lay hands on them because they have been hiding behind the population and inside the hospitals or in the more densely populated areas."
"I estimate that very quickly the Israel Defense Forces will have to go back inside in one order of magnitude or another to complete its tasks," he added, "Achievements and victory against terrorism should not take two days, but much longer. Unfortunately, we will have to go inside again and again and again, and I hope we will do the same in an intensive way so that we can hit terrorism in a significant way and succeed in removing significant activity from this area."
