(Jenin) Walkie-talkies blare, young members of Palestinian armed groups load anti-tank crosses into a pick-up. Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, comes out of a long Israeli raid in “shock” and sees the damage.
Black canvases litter the narrow streets of the eponymous refugee camp, torn after serving as cover against Israeli drones.
The Israeli army has just completed an operation on Thursday which it said targeted “terrorist cells of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Jenin region”.
The operation resulted in the death of 12 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, including four children, and left 25 injured.
“The army entered the camp on Tuesday morning while the students were on their way to school,” says Abdoul Jabbar al-Shalabi, director of a social center for youth in the Jenin camp.
“The special units entered first, then the snipers deployed on the roofs,” along with other units, he describes. “It was a shock. My daughter was taking an exam and I had to go pick her up from the camp.”
In the streets of Jenin – one of the strongholds of Palestinian armed factions in the northern West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967 – damaged parts of Israeli armored vehicles, a flag of the Islamic Jihad group.
Outside the camp, hundreds of people take part in a funeral procession, including armed Islamic Jihad militants who chant “Allah Akbar,” firing automatic weapons into the air in salute.
A special tribute was paid to surgeon Oussaid Jabarin by the staff of the city’s government hospital, gathered during a ceremony in his memory.
“Sadness”
The violence in this territory was exacerbated by the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement carried out from the Gaza Strip on Israeli territory on October 7.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 517 people have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank since October 7.
Since that same date, at least 12 Israelis have been killed in the occupied territory, in attacks or attacks perpetrated by Palestinians, according to official Israeli data.
The army said it had searched the home of Ahmed Barakat, a member of a Palestinian armed group suspected of involvement in an attack on an Israeli civilian last year. His house was reduced to ruins during the operation.
Israeli troops also positioned themselves in a two-story building, where foam mattresses were scattered after their departure.
Abdoul Jabbar al-Shalabi describes broken doors in the social center, damaged sports equipment, and diabetes treatments too.
After the troops left, children returned to play in the streets and kicked the ball in front of some rubble.
PHOTO LEO CORREA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A little boy plays with a ball near the debris in Jenin.
In the camp, dozens of buildings bear the scars of recent clashes, AFP journalists noted this morning. Some structures were completely destroyed.
“The camp is no longer livable, the wastewater has been mixed with drinking water since it was destroyed by the huge bulldozers of the Israeli army,” Mr. Shalabi said Thursday afternoon.
Fayza Abou-Qoutna, 60, says she is tired of Israeli raids in the camp where she has lived for decades.
“Every time they come to Jenin, the city is destroyed,” she laments. “We live in sadness, we live in misery.”