Jenin, symbol of resistance turns into ‘ghost town’

Since January 21st, Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank has been under assault from Israeli ground troops, tanks, warplanes, helicopters, and drones. Bulldozers have flattened homes torn up roads and water mains. Apartment blocks have been torched and blown up. Israeli troops have blockaded and besieged Ibn Sina Hospital and snipers have fired into the hospital building and grounds. Ambulances and medical teams are prevented from reaching wounded and ailing civilians. All 3,250 residential units in the Jenin camp have been made uninhabitable during the Israeli offensive. Israeli forces have expelled the 24,000 refugees from Jenin camp. Jenin city’s mayor Mohammad Jarrar said that the situation is “catastrophic.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF – Doctors Without Borders) have reported that “Israel’s ‘Iron Wall” operation ...has effectively emptied the three main refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams” in the northern West Bank. MSF warned that 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the region and are without shelter, services and health care. “This scale of forced displacement and destruction of the camps has not been seen for decades. People are unable to return to their homes as Israeli forces have blocked access to the camps, destroying homes and infrastructure. Camps have become ruins and dust. Israel must stop this, and the humanitarian response needs to be scaled up,” stated MSF Director of Operations Brice de la Vingne.

Palestinian residents call Israels’ ongoing offensive the most deadly and destructive since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s reinvasion of the occupied West Bank in 2002 when the Israeli army took over the camp after 10 days of brutal fighting during which 400 houses were destroyed and hundreds damaged. More than a quarter of the population was displaced, and 55 Palestinians were killed.

I visited the camp the day after the Israelis withdrew and found homes to be empty shells with holes made in internal walls so Israeli troops could move from place to place without entering the streets where Palestinian snipers lurked. In one house, dried, blackened brain matter was spattered on a wall. When I asked an elderly woman in black why she was probing a bulldozed mound of earth, she replied, “I’m looking for my grandson.” I queried, “How old was he?” She replied, “Six.”

The battle for Jenin that April was documented in the film “Jenin Jenin” by Palestinian-Israeli director and actor Mohammed Bakri who interviewed residents of Jenin camp. Although banned in Israel, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem cinematheques screened the film, which highlighted Palestinian opposition to the occupation and made Jenin a beacon of resistance. After the battle of 2002, the United Arab Emirates financed the rebuilding of the camp by UNRWA, the UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees. Streets were deliberately made as wide as a tank to prevent destruction when Israeli armour stages all too frequent forays into the camp. Life in the city and camp returned to “normal” – as normal as it could be under Israeli occupation and constant interference and harassment.

In July 2023, the Israeli army conducted another assault on Jenin refugee camp in response to an escalation of Palestinian-Israeli clashes which began in the spring of 2022. The assault was called Home and Garden, a reference to the Israeli military’s practice of “mowing the grass” – attacking Palestinian militants – from time to time to keep them in check. The assault began with air and drone strikes which were followed by an invasion by 2,000 ground troops and lasted 14 hours. At least 12 Palestinians were killed, 100 injured and 3,000 evacuated from the camp. This limited incursion was far less intrusive than the 2002 deadly and devastating operation or the ongoing onslaught.

Haaretz columnist and Jenin visitor Gideon Levy wrote on March 27th this year, the Jenin camp “is even more of a ghost town than back [in 2002; its houses and streets a mass of ruins with sewage flowing through them.” He continued, “No one still lives in the Jenin camp. The [Israeli army] shoots at anything that moves, and no one dares come close to the killing fields. The camp is dead and its residents have been exiled forever. The army has announced it would not allow homes and roads to be rebuilt there.”

The army focused on Jenin camp because it never surrendered to the occupation and became a symbol of resistance, Levy wrote. He said the destruction of the Jenin camp would be followed by the Nur al-Shams and Tulkarem camps. “The army has plans for all 18 camps.” But offers no alternative accommodation to the refugees. The Jenin camp was established by UNRWA, the UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees, in 1953 to house Palestinians driven from their homes and villages during Israel’s 1948 war of establishment. UNRWA reports that the Jenin camp has one of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty among the West Bank camps. Since employment in Israel has been curtailed, youth has been most seriously affected, “resulting in widespread dissatisfaction and frustration, and higher school dropout rates among younger children.”

Jenin city, capital of Jenin governate, has a population of more than 50,000 and is located in an area of West Bank which is administered by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. Jenin and the camp took part in the First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993) and the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and became known by Palestinians as the “martyrs’ capital” and by Israelis as a “hornets’ nest.”

Jenin camp, in particular, has become a major source of Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Fatah’s Martyrs’’ Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s Jenin Brigades and Hamas’ Izz-ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades defend the camp and take part in anti-Israeli operations.

Tension has been high across the West Bank since the beginning of the year. The UN reports that 99 Palestinians, including 17 children and three women, have been killed by Israeli forces. Among them there were 25 fatalities in Jenin camp, 12 in Jenin city, and eight in Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm governorate. Seven Israelis, including five members of the Israeli army, were killed by Palestinians, all of them in the northern West Bank.