Mohammed Jabareen, a 55-year-old resident of the Jenin refugee camp, said two of his children were wounded in the latest round of aerial bombardment.

The father of five had a son who was killed by Israeli forces back in January.

He recalled sitting near his son’s grave at around 1am when an Israeli fighter jet “passed us and attacked an area nearby”.

“I ran out to see what happened and found three young men injured. We took them to the hospital and we stayed inside the refugee camp. We couldn’t leave because Israeli soldiers entered and surrounded the entire camp,” Jabareen told Al Jazeera.

“We’ve been let down by everyone, but we’re thankful that those young men in the camp have stayed strong for us all,” he added.

“Inside the camp we have a strong sense of dignity and honour … these young men are lions.”

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has suspended contact and security coordination with Israel, his office said in a statement.

The decision came after Abbas held a meeting with other leaders of the PA.

Abbas has temporarily suspended coordination with Israel a number of times in the past during previous rounds of escalation.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Jenin, said the air is getting thick with smoke as protest fires are starting up.

“A dozen young men who are standing there, they’ve been throwing some stones at the Israelis, who replied with tear gas in the last half hour or so,” Fisher said.

Israeli army vehicles have been “driving into the Jenin refugee camp”, he said.

There was a huge explosion near the mosque as well, he added.

“We’re now more than 20 hours into this operation here in Jenin and there is no sign that this is about to end anytime soon.”

Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinian children during the operation in Jenin, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DFI-P), has said.

Nouruddin Husam Yousef Marshoud, 15, and 17-year-old Majdi Younis Saud Ararawi were killed by Israeli forces around 11:30am according to initial information collected by DFI-P.

“DCIP continues to investigate these killings as the Israeli military assault is ongoing,” it said.

Turkey’s foreign ministry has strongly condemned the Israeli raid in Jenin.

“We are deeply concerned that with these attacks, the current tension in the region could trigger a new spiral of violence,” a foreign ministry statement said.

The latest operation marks a significant escalation and follows a raid in Jenin two weeks ago that killed seven Palestinians and that was itself one of the largest conducted in years.

Israel is only increasing the scale of its incursions in the face of Palestinian resistance.

Read more here.

The Israeli army says it has found “two underground pits” containing ammunition inside a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp.

The area where the mosque is located has been the site of intense fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians for several hours.

Jenin Mayor Nidal Obeidi says the Israeli attack on Jenin is a “real massacre and an attempt to wipe out all aspects of life inside the city and the camp”.

“Those being targeted now are not just the resistance fighters, but civilians are being killed and civilians wounded as well,” the 56-year-old told Al Jazeera.

“What is happening now is the complete destruction of the camp’s infrastructure. What’s being targeted includes the water networks’ main lines, the sewage system as well as water tanks on the roofs,” Obeidi said.

“As a municipality, we are trying to fulfill our duties towards the camp’s residents, but the presence of Israeli snipers has prevented the municipality crews from carrying out their work.

“There is currently no water in the camp. We’ve stopped the well that feeds the camp because if the water continues to flow, it will be wasted on the ground due to the destruction of the pipes.”

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli government negotiator with the Palestinians who is now the president of the US/Middle East Project think tank, says the attack on Jenin is “part and parcel of the structural violence of the occupation”.

“There’s nothing that immediately precipitated this,” he told Al Jazeera from London.

Levy said the military offensive by Israel’s most hard-right government demonstrated “the continuation of an escalation” that stretched back to previous Israeli administrations.

“The thing that’s a bit different here, perhaps, is this government has been testing the water to just make sure – given how extreme the world considers it to be – whether it will still have impunity from its allies” in the West and the region, Levy added.

“Is this going to pass without a problem? And as they’ve escalated over the last few weeks, I think they’ve seen that it’s OK; impunity is still there. This goes on and on and they feel confident they can undertake a mission of this level of severity without cost or consequence to Israel and its relations with the West.”

Haifa Abu Sariya, a 34-year-old mother of three, says she can hear the sounds of shelling near her home in the Jenin refugee camp.

“They [Israeli soldiers] just launched a missile towards our neighbours’ house that’s about 10 metres [33 feet] away from us,” Sariya told Al Jazeera. “They had been told that the house was going to be targeted since the early hours of this morning.”

“Today we woke up to the sounds of air bombardment at around 1:15am. … Although we’re used to this tense atmosphere, this time, the shelling was so loud that my children were covering their ears the entire time. My little girl was crying and shaking from the sounds,” Sariya said.

“We live in the middle of the camp, and we heard from our neighbours and relatives that they [Israeli forces] have been destroying houses. They want to commit massacres inside the camp. … They want to wipe out the camp.”

Watch a June 20 episode of Inside Story on Israel’s attacks on Jenin below.

The White House is closely monitoring the situation in the West Bank, a spokesperson says.

“We have seen the reports and are monitoring the situation closely. We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups.”

The Israeli military requires at least another 24 hours to complete its operation in Jenin, a person briefed on the military’s planning is quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

The military has so far declined to say how long the operation will take, saying only that it could be longer than one day and forces would stay as long as necessary.

Israeli forces have shot and wounded three Palestinians and arrested two of them in the al-Basateen neighbourhood in Jenin, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

It cited the Palestinian Red Crescent as saying Israeli forces shot three young men and “prevented ambulance crews from reaching them”.

After two of the men were detained, medical crews were then able to reach the third man who was wounded by “several bullets” and taken to the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, it added.

Jalal Abu Khater, a Palestinian community leader, says what is happening in Jenin is felt across all the occupied and besieged Palestinian territories.

“It’s a very intense situation. It’s something we’ve been witnessing for the past year and a half. Constant raids, killings, prolonged massacres of Palestinians – this has been going on non-stop,” Abu Khater told Al Jazeera.

Jenin has a “very symbolic value for resisting occupation” in the West Bank, he said.

“Israel has been wanting to crush this symbolic value for the past two years. … The system of oppression, … we Palestinian face wholly across the land,” he said.

“What goes on in the West Bank is always interconnected with what goes on in Jerusalem and also Palestinians … who hold Israeli citizenship and those who live under the draconian siege of the Gaza Strip.”

United Nations Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland says he has been in “direct contacts with all relevant parties to urgently de-escalate the situation” in Jenin.

“The current escalation in the occupied West Bank is very dangerous & follows months of mounting tensions,” he said in a Twitter post.

“All must ensure the civilian population is protected.”

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from West Jerusalem, says the Palestinian Authority (PA) has called the Israeli operation “a war crime”.

“The operation was so big that earlier in the day, the Israeli military sent out a statement saying this wasn’t an operation to occupy Jenin – which shows you the amount of forces involved,” Khan said.

“They [Israel] said this was not an operation against the PA, … but when people are stacked on top of each other like in Jenin refugee camp, it’s inevitable there will be civilians caught in the middle.”

The Palestinian ambassador to the Arab League has called for an urgent meeting on Tuesday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Jenin, says there is “no sign that this operation is beginning to end”.

“The Israelis said this operation will last as long as it takes,” Fisher said.

“According to the Israelis, there are 10 fighters who are holed up in one of the mosques in the area where there is the most concentrated fighting,” Fisher said.

They are “refusing to give up, and they have been warned … that if they don’t surrender to the Israeli forces, then the Israeli forces will take the roof of the mosque down on their heads”, he added.

“We’re also told there has been intense fighting towards the centre of the Jenin refugee camp. That is where armed fighters have also used improvised explosive devices to repel the Israelis.”

The municipality of Jenin has announced that water and electricity services have been cut off from the refugee camp as a result of the ongoing Israeli military operation.

“The occupation is deliberately destroying the water networks’ main lines,” it said in a statement. “We’re urge residents of the camp to ration resources due to the siege.”

Armed confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians near al-Ansar Mosque in the Jenin refugee camp are ongoing, local media report.

Israeli forces have surrounded the area and are “besieging” it, the reports said, adding that the Israeli army has sent more of its soldiers and vehicles into the camp.