(Jenin) Adnan Naghnaghia remained confined to his home for eight days as Israeli forces carried out raids, fought Palestinian militants and carried out arrests in the occupied West Bank.
“It’s like a prison,” said the father of five, who lives in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, an area targeted by major Israeli “counterterrorism” operations since August 28.
The army considers Jenin and its surroundings as strongholds of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel. Israeli incursions are a daily occurrence in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and the scene of deadly violence. These have flared up since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, but rarely reach this scale.
As the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza approaches its 12th month, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that Israel must use “all its might” to combat “the resurgence of terrorism” in the West Bank, which is separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory.
“There is no other option, we must use all forces,” Mr. Gallant stressed.
Since last week, 36 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids in the northern West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The latter reported Thursday that five were killed in an attack on a car in the Tubas area, south of Jenin, with the Israeli army saying it targeted “armed terrorists.”
The presence of soldiers in the longest Israeli operation in decades in the West Bank is hampering life in Jenin, Naghnaghia said.
“They force you to stay at home instead of going out and living a normal life,” he said. Venturing outside has become so dangerous that Naghnaghia spoke to an AFP correspondent by phone while the two were in the Jenin camp, just 600 metres apart.
“Exhausted”
After years of repeated raids on the Jenin camp, residents have learned to stock up on food for several days, said Mr. Naghnaghia, 56.
But now he fears that won’t be enough. “We’re planning two or three days, not one or two weeks,” he worries.
In the city of Jenin, Fadwa Dababneh, 68, gets her groceries delivered by ambulance. Other vehicles have largely disappeared from the streets as gunfire rings out and many roads have been torn up by bulldozers.
For bottled water, “we made arrangements with the Red Crescent car, they gave us some,” she said.
Doctors treat the wounded, but they also deliver food and other basic supplies, or help residents make necessary trips around the city.
One woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP she had to take an ambulance to get a routine check-up at the hospital. “So much destruction, so much devastation, people are really exhausted,” she said.
Shortages
Military operations have forced health professionals to rapidly change their habits. Some, who can no longer return home as freely as before, now work 24 hours a day.
“To leave the hospital, we need permission, or we have to coordinate with an ambulance, because the area we are in is dangerous,” said Moayad Khalifeh, a 29-year-old doctor near the Jenin camp.
He works at Al-Amal, a maternity hospital that has begun taking in the wounded. “Most of the fighting and blockades are happening at our doorstep,” he says.
The hospital’s director, Mohammad al-Ardeh, was unable to visit the facility for a week due to the fighting, managing operations by phone, and some staff were unable to get to work, he told AFP.
To make matters worse, he adds, the water supply has been “interrupted six or seven times” since last week, and power cuts are frequent.