Violence in Jenin
On Monday, the refugee camp of Jenin was a prism of violence: within just 0.16 square miles, 14,000 Palestinians were under the thumb of Israeli drones and guns. Black smog and thousands of Israeli soldiers replaced the produce and schoolchildren in its crowded alleyways. With just a single bomb, a densely populated apartment complex—already precariously built—could crumble in an instant.
Despite reports from media outlets like The Times of Israel, the conflict in Jenin cannot be described as a ‘battle zone’—because it was not battle-like at all. These two days didn’t see conflict on a battlefield, whereby equals meet equals, but rather was a two-day barrage on civilians, who were trapped below bombs and the 150-armed vehicles roaming their streets. The attack was calculated and destructive, and a testament to an augmenting brutality that Palestinians are facing in the West Bank.
Fighting ended in the early morning on Wednesday this week. By the end, 4,000 were left as refugees and 12 Palestinians in Jenin were killed, including four children; 120 were injured Reports reveal that the massacred will be buried together in three graves, a testament to their adjoined struggle.
Their burial also serves as a symbol of the collective punishment that Palestinians of Jenin are experiencing. According to the UN, Israel’s invasion led to arbitrary destruction. It’s difficult to imagine that the Jenin Brigade’s arms were stored in all of the camp’s water-pipes and electricity lines that ran to civilian homes, targeted by Israel. Unsurprisingly, the UN found pitfalls in Israel’s ‘counterterrorism claim’, as they instead pointed out that it seems Israel’s actions could very well be classified as a war crime.
A History of Rebellion
Born in the aftermath of the Nakba, the Jenin camp has stood witness to decades of violence and displacement. Established in 1953 by the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the camp served as a refuge for thousands of Palestinians expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The refugees flooded in from villages and cities in the northern parts of Palestine, namely Haifa and Nazareth, and thus, younger generations—still living in limbo as refugees—can look out their windows in Jenin today and see the birthplace of their grandparents.
Beyond sharing a history of hardship, generations of Palestinians in and around Jenin have long remained at the forefront of Palestinian resistance. During the British Mandate period, Jenin was known as the center of rebellion, and played a crucial role in the Great Palestinian Revolt in the 1930s. When a senior British commander was assassinated in his Jenin office, British colonial troops blew up a quarter of the city—the vast destruction an eerie foreshadow of this week’s invasion. As Israeli forces later fanned across Palestine in 1948, the Iraqi Army and Palestinian fighters defended Jenin and repelled the Zionist troops, maintaining the town’s legacy as “the city that has never surrendered.”
After Jenin fell under Israeli occupation after the 1967 war, Palestinian youth flocked to join the resistance; Israeli leaders persisted in their failure to quell the city. Fast forward to the Second Intifada, Jenin became a major battlefield, known to Palestinians as the “martyr’s capital.” Cementing the city’s reputation as a hub of resistance, Israeli occupation forces besieged Jenin camp at the height of the Intifada where 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the Battle of Jenin in 2002.
Continually plagued by the violence of occupation, and yet steadfast in its commitment to resistance, Jenin camp is a product of Israeli history and settler-colonialism. Thus, the events of this past week should come as no surprise as Jenin residents continue to pick up arms and defend themselves against sophisticated Israeli weaponry.
The Bigger Picture
Haunting visuals of bulldozers, bullet-riddled homes, and debris littering the street all align with the Israeli goal of total control of the region. The recent uptick in vicious assaults against the Palestinian people reflects the desperation of Prime Minister Netanyahu to maintain a semblance of control amidst his rapidly deteriorating approval amongst Israelis. With his heavy-handed blows against Palestinian civilians, coupled with the mockery of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a viable government, the youth of the West Bank have become disillusioned.
The new generation of Palestinians within the West Bank are no longer willing to cling to the PA and are now turning to armed groups in Jenin and other cities for protection. They arm themselves to defend the remnants of broken families, mourning the 142 Palestinians who have been slaughtered by the IDF in the past 6 months.
The Israeli government continues to seek the destruction of the Palestinian entity. They wish to break the spirits of those who persist in fighting by steamrolling those who continue to resist, paving the way for more Jewish settlers. With a government filled with West Bank settlers, their interests are deeply vested in the ‘Gazafication’ of Jenin. This would allow the Israeli government to turn this once proud Palestinian hub into another piece of land to further exert their control over—a process already initiated with the marginalization of the PA and cutting off civilian supply to electricity and water.
The recent attack against Jenin affirms this new phase in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. The chief of the Israeli army’s Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, acknowledged that the invasion in Jenin was not meant to be one-off, but rather, the beginning of a series of operations to quell any Palestinian armed resistance. Though the future is uncertain, it is clear that these assaults on Palestinian lives and society will only escalate so long as Palestinians continue to resist Israel’s occupation and continuing colonization.
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This article was written by Mica Maltzman, Miryam Onstot, Galila Ibrahim, and Amina Iman, who are interns at The Jerusalem Fund. The views in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
