The Israeli army on Monday intensified its 70-day assault on Jenin city and the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
Despite the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, which ends Ramadan, Israel troop reinforcements and armoured vehicles stormed the city’s Jabal Abu Thahet and Khallet Al-Souha quarters, ordered residents to evacuate, and ransacked dwellings. In the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces demolished homes and ravaged infrastructure.
Since Israel’s “Iron Wall” offensive began in January, the UN says 21,000 Jenin camp residents have been displaced while another 20,000 have been driven from the northern Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps.
The aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières said this scale of forced displacement and destruction of the camps had not been seen for decades.
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“People are unable to return to their homes as Israeli forces have blocked access to the camps, destroying homes and infrastructure. Camps have become ruins and dust,” said the agency’s director of operations, Brice de le Vingne.
Jenin camp’s media committee said more than 3,500 housing units had been destroyed while others had been taken over by Israeli troops as command posts. Jenin mayor Mohammed Jarrar described the situation as “catastrophic” and said the camp was uninhabitable and 1,000 Palestinians living nearby had been displaced.
It has been estimated that the cost of camp reconstruction could be $310 million (€287 million). Mr Jarrar said the Israeli army had imposed a siege on the Jenin governorate, where 360,000 Palestinians lived.
Israeli news website Walla has reported that Israel has dispatched engineers to restructure the Jenin and Tulkarem camps to facilitate military incursions. Walla also said that since the offensive began in these camps, 88 Palestinians had been killed and 300 arrested. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said the army would remain in the camp after operations ceased.
The Jenin camp – which has been a chief centre of resistance – is known by Palestinians as the “martyrs’ capital”.
Israel’s current offensive is the longest and most destructive it has ever mounted in Jenin. During 2002, Israel seized control of the camp after 10 days of fighting during which 400 houses were destroyed and hundreds damaged. More than a quarter of the population was displaced, and 55 Palestinians were killed.
That assault inspired the film Jenin Jenin , which contributed to the camp’s reputation and made it an anti-occupation beacon. During 2023, Israel conducted an assault that lasted 14 hours, killed 12 Palestinians, injured 100 and displaced 3,000.
Since the October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, in which killed about 1,200 were killed and 250 abducted, at least 939 Palestinians have been killed and 7,000 injured in West Bank attacks by Israeli soldiers and settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
