At West Bank camp, ‘there’s no such thing as sleeping’
Israeli raids leave area in rubble, but unity remains
JENIN CAMP, West Bank — Mangled pipes poured sewer water into what remained of the road. On either side of the runoff were piles of broken pavement, churned up by bulldozers. The archway at the entrance to the neighborhood had been demolished; the gnarled hull of a black car sat nearby.
Allmost all of the residents of Jenin, a more-than-70-year-old refugee camp turned neighborhood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had fled in recent weeks. Of the handful who remained, few dared venture out onto the street. They knew that at any moment the quiet could erupt in gunfire as Israeli security forces carried out a new raid.
Since the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the Jenin refugee camp — long known as a bastion of armed resistance to the Israeli occupation — has been a focal point of what Israeli officials describe as counterterrorism operations in the West Bank and an extension of their war in the Gaza Strip.
Across the occupied territory, Israel has conducted near-nightly raids. In the Jenin camp, it has done so every few days, sometimes twice a day, and has arrested at least 158 people, according to Israeli authorities. Palestinian officials say at least 330 residents have been arrested and 67 people killed, including an 8-year-old child.
It is the deadliest two-month stretch that the camp has experienced in recent memory, described by residents as a relentless siege. The local armed resistance has been pummeled — for now, residents say.
“The new generation will come back stronger because of everything they are seeing now,” warned Salah Abu Shireen, 53, a shopkeeper in the camp. “The war, the killing, the invasion, the raids — it will all fuel even more resistance.”
Formally established in 1953, the Jenin refugee camp has been celebrated for decades by Palestinians as a symbol of resistance against Israeli rule. Nearly every resident here has had at least one relative jailed or killed, helping forge a sense of common destiny. Posters of slain fighters line the streets and children carry notes, akin to wills, on their phones in case they are killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers.
Since it was built, the camp has morphed from a smattering of tents to a neighborhood of concrete apartment buildings squeezed into the heart of surrounding Jenin city. But in recent weeks, the raids have left the camp, an area of less than half a square mile, battered.
Electricity lines have been damaged, water tanks punctured, and paved roads turned to little more than pebbles and dirt. The stench of sewage hangs in the air. Over the past two months, about 80 percent of the roughly 17,000 residents have temporarily moved to the surrounding city, local leaders say.
Since the raids began in the camp, Fida Mataheen, 52, and her relatives have often stayed awake anxiously until dawn. “There’s no such thing as sleeping at night in the camp these days,” she said. “We are always lying awake, waiting.”
This month, a well-known leader, Muhammad Zubeidi, 26, was killed in a clash with Israeli security forces. The Israeli forces confirmed they had killed Zubeidi, whom they identified as “the Jenin Camp Commander” and an operative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group based in Gaza.
News of his death reverberated across the camp. Days after, Zubeidi’s father, Jamal, 67, sat in their family’s home welcoming mourners who had come to offer condolences. The family was renowned in the camp, and posters memorializing cousins and sons and brothers who had died fighting Israeli forces covered the walls.
“What the Israelis are trying to do with all this destruction is create a state of despair and drive a wedge between the people in the camp and the resistance — so people blame the resistance fighters,” Jamal Zubeidi said. “What the Israelis don’t realize is that our biggest strength is our unity.”