Occupied West Bank | Jenin, a camp at the heart of violence

The violence continued to raise fears of a further escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Tuesday. An Israeli soldier was killed as the army began its withdrawal from Jenin in the evening, after the major offensive launched on Monday. Rockets were also launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel during the night.

A dozen Palestinians were killed during the two-day operation and dozens more were injured.

A “hub of terrorism” for the Israelis, a den of “resistance fighters” for the Palestinians, the Jenin camp is marked by poverty and violence.

“I have four children and I worry about their future,” said Mustafa Sheta, reached by telephone Monday evening in Jenin, a town neighboring the camp of the same name. “Sometimes I even wonder why I have children…”

The 43-year-old is the managing director of the Freedom Theatre, founded in 2006 to enable children and teenagers in the refugee camp to channel their emotions through art. He worried Monday about the repercussions for these young people who remained in the camp during the Israeli offensive. “It’s really difficult,” he said.

Some 18,000 people live in the camp, families and descendants of Palestinians displaced during the creation of Israel in 1948. They are crowded into an area of ​​about 0.43 km^⁠2.

Infrastructure destroyed

For a little over a year, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers have become more frequent in Jenin, over the interventions. The two-day offensive, on the other hand, stood out for its scale.

“There have been multiple incursions, but this seems to be the most aggressive since 2002, with the use of air force and ground troops,” Jason Lee, Palestinian Territory director for Save the Children, said over the phone. It creates significant destruction of civilian infrastructure, such as roads and buildings, and it affects the distribution of water, electricity, internet. »

The members of the organization could not go there, he specifies, the perimeter having been cordoned off. Thousands of Palestinians fled the camp on Monday and Tuesday.

A central camp

Attacks have been committed in recent months by Palestinians from the camp. The Jenin Brigade, an armed group in the region, is on the blacklist of Israel, which accuses it of fomenting terrorist attacks, supported by Iran.

Last week, Israeli military authorities said two rockets had been launched from Jenin – a rare occurrence in the West Bank, as such projectiles are usually the preserve of Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip.

The rockets would have fallen into Palestinian territory, causing no injuries.

“They are trying to build a system to launch rockets towards Israel and aim [de l’opération israélienne] is to nip it in the bud and destroy the infrastructure that is used to launch attacks, the places where the weapons are stored,” summed up retired professor Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, over the phone. .

Responses

Promises of Palestinian response took the form of a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. The driver of the vehicle, a Palestinian, was “neutralized” after getting out of his car with a “sharp object”, according to the Israeli police. During the night, rockets were also launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. No injuries were reported at the time of this writing.

These are the latest events in a year punctuated by various acts of violence and revenge: attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, “punitive expeditions” by Jewish settlers to villages in the occupied West Bank, military operations and arrests.

At least 140 Palestinians and 25 Israelis were killed in the West Bank in 2023, according to Agence France-Presse.

The political climate makes the resolution of the situation delicate. Israel has been ruled since January by a coalition of far-right politicians calling for a hard line against the Palestinians. The governmental entity responsible for the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, is itself weakened, accused of corruption and frowned upon by supporters of the armed struggle against Israel.

Several calls for calm have been made in recent days. “The killings, bodily harm and destruction of property must stop,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

Second intifada

Jenin was already a hot spot during the second intifada, that particularly deadly Palestinian uprising between 2000 and 2005.

Failing infrastructure, imprisonment and military incursions are compounded by poverty and high unemployment.

A situation that pushes young people towards violence, believes Mr. Sheta. “When you have no more hope… you go a little crazy,” he says.

The former prisoner also refuses to condemn the violence of the Palestinian “combatants”.

“We do cultural resistance, but we respect all kinds of resistance,” he says. His theater has already caused controversy, both among Palestinian clerics and the Israeli authorities – one of the co-founders has been accused of terrorism by the Israelis.

If the events of the last few days remind Mr. Sheta of the second intifada – drones having replaced tanks, he specifies – Mr. Rabinovich does not have the same reading: the military operation on Monday and Tuesday was “average “, according to him. “It’s not on the scale of the second intifada, but it’s not a routine operation either,” he explains.

Rather, he sees it as a way to reduce the means used in violence against Israelis.

With Agence France-Presse