Jenin updates: Palestinian deaths rise, Israeli raid continuing
Israeli army launches air raids on Jenin refugee camp, injuring dozens of people and inflicting heavy damage on infrastructure.
This blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates for Israel’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, July 3.
This blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates for Israel’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, July 3.
- Israeli forces launch air attacks and ground raids carried out by hundreds of soldiers, killing at least 10 Palestinians in the largest military operation in Jenin in 20 years.
- A man was also shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah.
- Palestinian officials said that about 3,000 people have fled Jenin refugee camp amid the Israeli military operation.
- Doctors Without Borders and the Palestine Red Crescent Society made separate calls for access to the injured and for “safe passage” to be given for evacuations from Jenin.
- Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen signals Israel is not intending to expand its operation in Jenin to the rest of the occupied West Bank.
General strike called in occupied West Bank to protest against Jenin ‘war crime’
Offices and businesses across the occupied West Bank were expected to close in response to calls for a general strike to protest against the Israeli army’s operation in Jenin, which the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has described as a “war crime”.
Ten Palestinian people have been confirmed killed so far in Jenin with about 100 hospitalised and 20 of those in critical condition, according to authorities. Israeli forces also killed a Palestinian man in Ramallah.
“Shops were shuttered and life came to a standstill in most areas of the West Bank as calls were made for people to take part in protests and demonstrations in support of Jenin and to confront soldiers at contact points,” the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Death toll in Jenin said to rise to 10: Al Jazeera reporter
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Jenin, said the sounds of gunfire and explosions were heard overnight on Monday in Jenin and again on Tuesday morning and the latest information was that more people had died, bringing the death toll to 10 so far from the continuing Israeli military raid.
There were also “hundreds of people who have been wounded in this Israeli assault”, Fisher said, adding that at least 20 of those are said to be in critical condition in hospital.
Israel has said that it still has 10 targets in Jenin and its military operation will continue until “they are removed”, Fisher added.
Doctors Without Borders condemns denial of medical access in Jenin
International medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) has called for health workers to be “assured of unhindered access” to those in need of medical care in Jenin amid the Israeli military’s largest raid on the city’s refugee camp in more than 20 years.
According to the organisation, all roads leading to the Jenin refugee camp have been blocked by Israeli forces “for the duration of the military operation despite the presence of patients in need of care inside the refugee camp”.
“Beyond killing and injuring people, this military operation has also affected health structures and obstructed the medical response to the emergency,” the organisation said in a statement.
Israeli “military bulldozers destroyed multiple roads leading to the Jenin refugee camp, making it nearly impossible for ambulances to reach patients,” MSF said.
“Additionally, Palestinian paramedics have been forced to proceed on foot to reach people in need of desperate medical treatment in an area with active gunfire and drone strikes,” it added.
Palestinian mission questions UN’s duty amid Jenin raid
The Palestinian mission to the United Nations has asked the international community if it is not “duty-bound” to act when a civilian population – which is already under occupation – is attacked with “absolute disregard for human life” by a foreign force “armed to the teeth” and in flagrant breach of international law.
“Is it not clear for all the world to see that Israel’s terrorism and aggression against the Palestinian people is escalating and becoming ever more brutal, invasive and hateful as it becomes ever more emboldened by the inaction of the international community,” the mission said in a statement amid the Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Why is Jenin a focal point of conflict in the occupied West Bank?
The Israeli military operation against the Jenin refugee camp is the largest since the 2000-2005 second Intifada – or mass Palestinian uprising against Israel’s decades-long occupation.
At least eight Palestinians have been killed so far in Jenin, including two children. Israeli forces also shot a ninth Palestinian dead near Ramallah.
Click here to find out more about Jenin, a focal point of conflict between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters.
Some 3,000 flee Jenin refugee camp amid Israeli military onslaught
About 3,000 Palestinians have fled the Jenin refugee camp since Israeli forces began a significant military operation in the area on Monday, a Palestinian official said.
“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub told the AFP news agency, adding that arrangements were being made to house the displaced in schools and other shelters in the city of Jenin.
He said about 18,000 Palestinians live in the refugee camp.
Israeli forces operating with ‘total impunity’ in Jenin
Rami G Khouri, co-director of global engagement at the American University of Beirut, said the “level of intensity” of the latest attacks by Israeli forces was far more than the population of Jenin had “ever experienced before”.
Placing the military operation in the context of “Israeli colonial violence” which has been continuing for a century, Khouri said Israeli forces were operating with “total impunity”.
“The Israelis have such disproportionately greater power – and total impunity at the UN because of the US and other vetoes – that they can do anything that they want. And they are doing that,” Khouri told Al Jazeera.
“They’re doing whatever they feel they want to do, however extreme it is and nobody is holding them accountable,” he said.
EU Middle East peace representative warns of possible ‘major eruption’ in Jenin
The European Union’s special representative for the Middle East peace process Sven Koopmans said the situation in Jenin has raised the possibility “of a major eruption”, and has called on all sides to protect civilians.
Koopmans said he was following the events in Jenin closely, which had come after “months of escalating violence and increasing hopelessness”.
“We call on all parties to protect civilian life and respect humanitarian law,” Koopmans wrote in a tweet, adding that he had met with Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheal Martin, where the two had discussed the “terrible situation” in Jenin and the need to work towards “peace and security for all”.
Video shows residents evacuating Jenin camp
Footage on social media shows refugees in the Jenin refugee camp evacuating overnight – many taking to the street on foot – as residents fear continued violence in the area.
— Local Focus – Security Alerts (@LocalFocus1) July 3, 2023
Jenin faces ‘critical’ health situation: Palestinian health minister
Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila told Al Jazeera that the situation in the Jenin refugee camp has become “very, very difficult”.
“The water network and electricity network is damaged, especially inside the refugee camp, which makes the life more difficult for the refugees,” she said. “The health situation is really very critical.”
Al-Kaila explained that hospitals were crowded with those injured in the attack and workers were struggling to arrive at healthcare centres due to the violence.
But, she added, her ministry had already prepared local hospitals for such an assault.
“Medical supplies and the medicines were transported to the hospitals. That will be enough for three months. And that was done last week, because we anticipated that Israel is going to have an aggression to Jenin Governorate,” Al-Kaila said.
US groups voice support for Israel
Several US legislators and pro-Israel groups have voiced support for Israeli military actions in Jenin, defining them as efforts to address activity by armed Palestinian groups.
“Terrorist groups proliferated and so did murders of Israelis,” the group Democratic Majority for Israel said in a Twitter post on Monday. “With the PA [Palestinian Authority] giving up control, Israel has no choice but to defend itself.”
In a post last week, the pro-Israel group AIPAC said Israeli operations were part of an effort to “deter attacks and protect Israeli civilians” from “Iranian-backed terrorism”.
Pro-Israel groups in the US include a wide variety of actors, from Jewish and evangelical Christian groups to hawkish foreign policy voices who see support for Israel as a way to counter regional powers such as Iran.
The Palestinian Authority abandoned its security responsibilities in Jenin and elsewhere. Terrorist groups proliferated and so did murders of Israelis. With the PA giving up control, Israel has no choice but to defend itself. https://t.co/VLPJYkGE0v
— Democratic Majority for Israel (@DemMaj4Israel) July 3, 2023
Disillusionment fuels young fighters in Jenin: Analyst
Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that civilians in Jenin were “paying the price of not having any progress on the peace process – and not having any peace process at all”.
“When there is an impasse in the political level, it ends with militancy,” Mekelberg said. “We’ve got again and again the same situation. Israel thinks it needs to stop militant groups from operating there and then everyone else is regarded by Israel as collateral damage.”
Mekelberg noted that many young Palestinians today see the Palestinian Authority (PA) as playing the role of “sub-contractors of Israel’s security”, even as the prospects of Palestinian statehood fade and Israel entrenches its occupation in the West Bank.
The disillusionment with the PA has sometimes taken the form of new armed groups led by a younger generation of fighters in cities such as Jenin and Nablus.
“They try actually to, not necessarily in the right way, but they try to break the impasse,” Mekelberg said.
Raids add to turbulent history of Jenin camp
The Jenin refugee camp has been the site of “significant suffering” for decades, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The camp was the site of violence during the Second Intifada, an armed uprising that started in 2000. During 10 days of fighting in 2002, Israeli forces destroyed more than 400 homes, damaged hundreds more and displaced more than a quarter of the population.
According to the UN, the camp sits on approximately 0.42 sq km (0.16 sq miles) of land – making it less than a quarter mile in size. But despite its relatively small area, the Jenin camp has a population density of about 33,333 people per square kilometre.
The UN also said that camp residents suffer from some of the highest unemployment rates in the 19 refugee camps located in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian rights group calls for sanctions on Israel
The Palestinian rights group Al-Haq has said it is “high time” for Israel to face sanctions and an arms embargo. The group says that Israeli authorities have issued an alert giving residents just two hours to evacuate the Jenin camp.
Al-Haq believes the evacuation order could be a precursor to a larger assault on the camp.
“This disturbing sign indicates the IOF are gearing up for a large-scale attack on #JeninRefugeeCamp,” the group said in a Twitter post.
“With fully-armoured military vehicles, including D9 bulldozers, an increase in Palestinians killed & destruction of Palestinian homes & infrastructure is expected.”
Earlier today, the international rights group Human Rights Watch also said that Israeli forces have a “track record of launching airstrikes that unlawfully kill civilians and amount to war crimes”. It called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate.
🚨1/ Israeli occupying authorities have reportedly given residents of #JeninRefugeeCamp a mere 2-hour notice to 'evacuate'. At least tens of Palestinian families are forced to hastily flee the Camp while Israeli occupying forces carry out extensive checks on everyone.
— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) July 3, 2023
AJ correspondent says fear widespread among camp residents
Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim, reporting live from the occupied West Bank, said that residents of the Jenin refugee camp are becoming increasingly anxious after nearly 24 hours of assaults by the Israeli military.
“We’re talking about a camp that has been under an Israeli assault for around 24 hours now,” she said. “So you can imagine people don’t have water or electricity or any sense of security in their homes.”
Ibrahim noted that many of those living in the camp are refugees from families first expelled from their places of origin during Israel’s founding in 1948, when Israeli forces depopulated hundreds of Palestinian villages.
“Now, we’re seeing the young generations also feeling that pain,” she said.
Israeli forces in #Jenin are making sure children, who were already born in Refugee Camps, understand the experience of one leaving their home under threat of a major military power. 1/2
— Nida' Ibrahim (@nida_journo) July 3, 2023
Im Youssef, a resident of Jenin, told Al Jazeera she was forced to evacuate her family after Israeli forces destroyed their home.
“The children are so scared. Where do we go now?” she asked. “They destroyed the home while we were in it. We had to escape. Look at the children. They’re terrified. They’re barefoot, we had to leave so quickly.”
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slams Israeli raid
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed the Israeli military’s incursion into a refugee camp in Jenin, where hundreds of Israeli ground forces and numerous air strikes have killed at least eight Palestinians.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Tlaib said that Israeli forces were “blocking ambulances” and preventing wounded Palestinians from receiving medical attention. Tlaib retweeted a video shared by Al Jazeera showing an Israeli bulldozer destroying a road in the Jenin camp.
In the post Tlaib, a Palestinian-American congresswoman representing the state of Michigan, called on the US to cease its support for what she called “violent Israeli apartheid”.
Israeli authorities say they are targeting Palestinian armed groups that have stepped up their activities in recent months and Tlaib’s comments have drawn rebuke from pro-Israel groups and advocates.
Israeli forces are now blocking ambulances from reaching the dozens of wounded Palestinians after at least eight people were killed in Jenin.
Congress must stop funding this violent Israeli apartheid regime. https://t.co/uPEEhWDDrG
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) July 3, 2023
1,000 Israeli soldiers to begin next phase of Jenin operation: Report
About 1,000 Israeli soldiers will begin the “second phase” of the operation in Jenin in the next few hours, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Palestinian foreign ministry calls for international intervention
The Palestinian foreign ministry has called for urgent international intervention to stop the displacement of Palestinian civilians from their homes in the Jenin refugee camp.
Many have sought shelter in nearby hospitals, local media reported, while the Palestinian Red Crescent said it evacuated some 500 families.
‘All options on the table to strike enemy’: PIJ
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) said that its members will continue to fight in Jenin and that “all options” are available to “strike the enemy and respond to its barbaric aggression”.
Red Crescent says 500 families evacuated
The Palestine Red Crescent announced that it had evacuated about 500 Palestinian families from inside the Jenin refugee camp.
Young men in Gaza demonstrate against Jenin attack
Dozens of young Palestinians have gathered on the eastern flank of Gaza City to protest Israel’s ongoing military operation at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Young men chanted slogans against Israel and burned tyres near the buffer zone between Gaza and Israel.
The Israeli army responded by firing tear gas canisters, which resulted in the injury of a photojournalist with Arab TV who was hit in his leg.
Resistance factions also announced the activation of “night confusion” activities from Gaza City in response to the attack on Jenin. It is unclear what those involve.
Steady US support gives Israel ‘cover’
The United States’ unwavering support for Israel has enabled and emboldened the right-wing Israeli government’s escalating violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, analysts say.
“I think we will continue to see – as has happened in the past – the US administration run cover for the Israelis and let them get away with doing whatever they want,” Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project think-tank, told Al Jazeera.
The Biden administration does not want the situation in the occupied West Bank to blow up, but it will not risk its relationship with Israel, Levy said. “And that’s why, in particular, things have gotten so bad.”
Read more here.
American-Muslim group condemns Israel’s ‘war crimes’
The US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned “war crimes” against Palestinian civilians in the Jenin refugee camp, calling on the United States and US President Joe Biden to “take concrete action to stop the Israeli government’s escalating human rights abuses”.
“We strongly condemn the war crimes that [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu’s racist government is committing against Palestinian civilians in the Jenin refugee camp using American taxpayer dollars, and we call on the State Department to do the same,” Nihad Awad, the group’s national executive director, said in a statement.
“Between these ongoing attacks on refugees, violent settler rampages, illegal settlement expansion, the murder of dozens of Palestinian children this year alone, and the refusal to hold anyone accountable for the brazen assassination of American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, the Israeli government is completely out of control because it does not expect to face any consequences from the Biden administration.”
‘Imperative’ to avoid civilian deaths, US says
It is vital to take all possible precautions to prevent the killing of civilians as Israeli forces strike the city of Jenin in one of the biggest occupied West Bank operations in 20 years, the US State Department has said.
“It is imperative to take all possible precautions to prevent the loss of civilian lives,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding “We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups.”
‘We’ve been let down by everyone’: Jenin resident
Mohammed Jabareen, a 55-year-old resident of the Jenin refugee camp, said two of his children were wounded in the latest round of aerial bombardment.
The father of five had a son who was killed by Israeli forces back in January.
He recalled sitting near his son’s grave at around 1am when an Israeli fighter jet “passed us and attacked an area nearby”.
“I ran out to see what happened and found three young men injured. We took them to the hospital and we stayed inside the refugee camp. We couldn’t leave because Israeli soldiers entered and surrounded the entire camp,” Jabareen told Al Jazeera.
“We’ve been let down by everyone, but we’re thankful that those young men in the camp have stayed strong for us all,” he added.
“Inside the camp we have a strong sense of dignity and honour … these young men are lions.”