Fasting and funerals: Violence darkens West Bank Ramadan
JENIN: Normally festive Ramadan nights have become rife with danger in the Zionist-occupied West Bank, said hospital director Wisam Bakr, as surging violence casts a long shadow over the Muslim fasting month. His hospital in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has been on the front line of the spike in violence since the Zionist entity began its assault on Gaza in October 2023.
Instead of breaking the daily Ramadan fast with family and friends, “at night we try not to go outside ... because the night is not safe,” said Bakr. “At any hour there may be a raid” by Zionist forces, he said.
As the Zionist pursues its withering military campaign, which it claims is aimed at destroying Palestinian group Hamas, violence in the West Bank involving Zionist forces or settlers — already rising before the war — has spiked to levels unseen in two decades.
Since October 7, the Jenin Government Hospital has received 44 people killed and 264 people wounded in Zionist raids, said the director Bakr. Beyond the casualties and damage the frequent military
operations have caused, residents of Jenin — a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups — said the violence has translated into quiet streets, subdued celebrations and anxiety.
“There are no people” on the streets, said Mohammed Omar, a sweets vendor who has spent his whole life in Jenin refugee camp, one of the West Bank’s most crowded and impoverished, and the site of repeated Zionist raids.
‘Afraid for my children’
According to Omar, the heavy atmosphere of this year’s Ramadan can be felt not just in the immediate aftermath of raids and strikes, but also on relatively quiet days. “People are staying in their homes, afraid of the bombing, and they don’t have money to spend,” he said.
Even if they did, they would likely have some trouble getting around, as many streets have been damaged and some rendered impassable by Zionist bulldozers carrying out demolitions. The Zionist entity routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent, while critics say this policy amounts to collective punishment.
Bakr said the violence and fear had taken a toll on the hospital’s staff and made for a much more reserved Ramadan. Their work is high-pressure, with casualties often arriving at night and overwhelming emergency
medics. “Nowadays I hurry up” to get home after the daily fast ends at sunset, “because I’m afraid not only for me, but for my children too,” Bakr said.
Recently, Zionist forces killed two men inside the hospital, in what the military described as “counterterrorism activity” against “armed suspects”. In footage stored on Bakr’s phone, one of the men, Mahmud Abu Al-Haija, wearing jeans and a black sweater, is gunned down just outside the emergency ward, leaving a bright red streak of blood on the floor as others drag him away.
The man’s aunt, Farha Abu Al-Haija, told AFP that he was “neither a resistance fighter nor a weapon bearer”, and that he had run to the hospital seeking safety. Both of the slain men’s bodies were draped in green Hamas flags and adorned with headbands of the militant group’s armed wing for their funeral, AFP footage showed.
Farha Abu Al-Haija said she usually looks forward to Ramadan, but now her family and others’ “are missing a member”. “There is sadness, anger, pain.” At least 444 Palestinians have been killed by Zionist forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Mokhles Turkman was driving home from work on Wednesday, planning to break the fast with his family, when he heard a loud explosion — a strike the Zionist entity said had targeted Palestinian militants.