Jenin updates: Residents start rebuilding after Israeli attack
These were the updates for the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday, July 5.
This live blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates for the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday, July 5.
This live blog is now closed. Thank you for joining us. These were the updates for the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday, July 5.
- The Israeli military says it has withdrawn from the Palestinian city of Jenin after launching one of its biggest assaults on the occupied West Bank in decades.
- The two-day raid killed at least 12 Palestinians in Jenin and one in Ramallah, with dozens more wounded.
- Basic infrastructure and nearly 80 percent of homes in the camp have been damaged, Jenin’s Deputy Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub said.
- Meanwhile, Israel launched air attacks on Gaza after rockets were fired from the besieged strip overnight in response to the Jenin operation.
- Thousands of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank celebrated the army’s withdrawal though many said a large Israeli force was still present.
Israeli military raids in Jenin may constitute war crime, UN experts say
Israel’s military raids targeting the Jenin refugee camp “may prima facie constitute a war crime”, a group of UN experts said.
“Israeli forces’ operations in the occupied West Bank, killing and seriously injuring the occupied population, destroying their homes and infrastructure, and arbitrarily displacing thousands, amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime,” the experts said in a statement.
The statement condemned Israeli forces’ so-called “counterterrorism” actions as they had “no legal justification under international law”, and expressed “grave concern” about military weaponry and tactics deployed by Israel’s occupation forces at least twice over the last two weeks against Jenin’s population.
“[Palestinians] cannot be treated as a collective security threat by the occupying Power, all the more while it advances the annexation of occupied Palestinian land, and displacement and dispossession of its Palestinian residents,” the statement said.
Marwan Bishara: Israel is reinforcing its supremacy, not security
Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said Israel has “lost the plot and moral high ground” that it has tried to defend and present to the international community.
“They are appearing to be what they are: an occupying power that is using disproportionate force and violence against a mostly civilian population, destroying civilian infrastructure in order to reinforce not their security but their supremacy,” Bishara said, speaking from Paris.
While Israel has a long record of abuse, occupation and repression, the current far-right Israeli government is showing its true face, Bishara said, one of a “sadistic psychopath”.
“There is a certain aggression, a certain sadism towards the Palestinians, with the attempt to punish, hurt and kill them – knowing all too well that this has not worked in the past,” he added.
Israeli military operation ‘form of collective punishment’: Analyst
Tahani Mustafa, Palestine analyst for the International Crisis Group said that Israel’s operation on the Jenin refugee camp was a “measured strategy to make Palestinian localities unliveable”.
“What we’ve seen is Israel using its air force deploying maximum impact with minimum exposure and loss to its own forces,” she said, speaking from the Jordanian capital of Amman.
“It is a form of mass collective punishment, not only in violation of the laws of war and human rights, but ultimately, Israel knows it can do what it wants as long as the death toll isn’t too high to dominate international news and cause international alarm.”
Jenin, Mustafa pointed out, is a densely populated area.
“To assume that civilians would not be harmed in any way is absolutely preposterous,” she said. “We saw the kinds of infrastructures that the Israelis were targeting and it wasn’t just mosques and hospitals, it was also journalists who were prevented from accessing the area for the last two days.
UN school and health facility wrecked in camp
Two facilities belonging to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) inside the Jenin camp have sustained heavy damages from the Israeli military offensive, an Al Jazeera correspondent said.
The UN agency has about 90 staff members who work directly with the camp, and have just entered the area to assess the damage.
“According to them, one of the schools that the UN runs within the camp has been damaged and the roads leading to the school have been so badly damaged they cannot even access the school,” Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo said, speaking from the UN headquarters in New York.
Children are not able to get any sort of education until the school is repaired, he continued.
“Also the UN confirmed that the windows were completely blown out of a UN health centre inside the Jenin refugee camp, and that there was extensive damage to the structure of the health facility.”
UN says attacks on civilian infrastructure violates international law
The spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general said that the Israeli military operation on Jenin refugee camp did not “show full respect” for international humanitarian law.
“We always want in all such operations to avoid places of high civilian concentration, and to avoid facilities like hospitals,” Farhan Haq said.
“Certainly, we believe that any attacks on civilian infrastructure could be violations of international humanitarian law. It’s clear that in this case over the past two days, there were accounts of civilian infrastructure and hospitals being hit.”
Hamas: Unity and courage of resistance resulted in victory
A Hamas spokesman told local Palestinian news agency Maan that the Palestinian resistance in Jenin had secured a win for the Palestinian people against the Israeli assault on the refugee camp.
“This victory was only achieved through the unity of the Palestinian people and the courage of the resistance, breaking the strength of the Israeli occupation and dispelling its illusion and goals,” Abdel Latif al-Qanou said.
Israel says army has ‘freedom of action’ to attack Jenin
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said he gives the army “freedom of action” to deal with the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
“Starting this morning, the [Israeli army] and the Shin Bet [domestic intelligence service] have a different freedom of action in Jenin,” Gallant said in statements cited by Israeli public broadcaster KAN.
“From our point of view, this is not the end of the story. Just as we acted with strength here, we will act after this with whatever strength is required in a specific place or in the entire refugee camp,” Gallant said.
“The objectives of the operation have been fully achieved,” he added.
Israeli PM Netanyahu: Jenin no longer a ‘safe haven’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Palestinian fighters will not have a “safe haven” in Jenin and this week’s military operation is “by no means the last action we take”.
“We’ve just finished a comprehensive action against the terrorist enclave in Jenin,” he said, speaking at the Palmachim Airbase.
“We operated in a very systemic way with large forces in one of the most concentrated and dense areas on the planet, and we were able to attack the terrorists while avoiding civilian casualties.”
Netanyahu said the military will do what it can to fight the “terrorists”.
“We will do what we can from the ground, from the air, with superb intelligence,” he said. “They shall have no safe haven.”
Islamic Jihad: Resistance in Jenin has not been defeated
The military spokesman for the Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, al-Quds Brigade, said that the Palestinian fighters turned Israel’s “home and garden” operation into a “flimsy aggression”.
In a video message, Abu Hamza said that the Palestinian resistance in the camp “thwarted the enemy’s tactics” by using explosive devices and ambushes.
“The enemy has mobilised its heavily armed forces with all means of strength from the air and ground, against our heroes in the Jenin Battalion of the al-Quds Brigades,” Abu Hamza said.
“The resistance in the West Bank and Jenin has withstood and has not and will not be defeated in front of this formidable enemy.”
Israeli police vehicle shot at in Nablus, no injuries reported
A shooting attack on an Israeli police car took place near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to Israeli army radio.
No injuries were reported, and Israeli forces began a search operation for the gunmen, the radio said.
“Palestinian gunmen opened fire from a speeding car on a settlement near Nablus, causing damage to a shop and a vehicle,” the radio report said.
ICRC: Humanitarian situation in Jenin camp ‘very alarming’
The majority of the Jenin camp’s residents have been “massively distressed” by the Israeli military operation, according to Imene Trabelsi from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“It is important to highlight that the population were already victim of the last six turbulent months due to several peaks of violence that occurred during the last six months, which makes the humanitarian situation already fragile,” Trabelsi told Al Jazeera, speaking from Beirut.
“What we are witnessing as we are speaking is that the majority of the population within the camp have been somehow affected.”
The residents do not have access to electricity and clean, drinkable water due to the damage caused by Israeli forces to the main water pipelines and electricity grid. Armed actors have the legal obligation to take every possible measure in order to protect the safety of civilians, their properties, and the vital infrastructure, Trabelsi said.
“What we are seeing today is a very alarming humanitarian situation that requires further support from the humanitarian actors,” she said. “The main responsibility falls under what the authorities must be delivering. Israeli authorities do have the obligation during such operations to make sure that the population at all times do still have access to water, electricity, health, food and shelter.”
‘Israeli forces are happy to kill children,’ BBC anchor tells former Israeli PM Bennett
A BBC anchor has criticised the Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp, where five minors were among the 12 Palestinians killed.
“Israeli forces are happy to kill children,” presenter Anjana Gadgil said during an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
“The Israeli military are calling this a ‘military operation’, but we now know that young people are being killed, four of them under 18. Is that really what the military set out to do? To kill people between the ages of 16 and 18?”
But Bennett, who published part of the interview on his Twitter account with the caption “one of the interviews hostile towards Israel”, argued that all those killed in Jenin were “militants”.
אחד הראיונות העוינים לישראל שאני זוכר.
צפו בראיון המלא שלי אמש ל-BBC>> pic.twitter.com/NFjGCaZszw— Naftali Bennett בנט (@naftalibennett) July 5, 2023
“The fact that there are young terrorists who decide to hold arms is their responsibility,” he said.
“Terrorists, but children,” the BBC anchor replied. “The Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
Residents start to rebuild camp
Residents of Jenin’s refugee camp are beginning to rebuild the site after the trail of destruction carried out by Israeli forces during the two-day military offensive, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reported.
“They are moving rubble from houses that have been damaged from roads that have been ripped up from military vehicles,” he said, speaking from inside the camp.
“They are trying to restore electricity, as well. They’re trying to get some semblance of life back to normal but they know there are a lot of difficulties and a lot of difficult times still ahead.”
Fisher went on to say that the camp’s residents are glad to be back and “would rather be here than anywhere else”.
“We know that 3,000 people left [the camp] but many more thousands decided to hunker down and try and stay safe in their homes,” he said. “They’ve all come out today to see what is open, what needs to be rebuilt, [and] to see what they can do to help.”
WHO representative praises healthcare facilities in Jenin
Richard Peeperkone, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said that the healthcare sector in Jenin is operating in a fragile state without sufficient financial support.
The three hospitals in Jenin were attacked by Israeli forces on Monday and Tuesday by tear gas canisters. Peeperkone praised the hospitals for their “exceptional work” and called on Israeli forces to respect healthcare facilities, including “the safe passage of the healthcare workers”.
“The WHO has the responsibility that in each conflict, it should monitor attacks that are defined as any action that is considered the destruction of or harming of healthcare establishments that offer treatments and healthcare for people in emergency situations,” he told Al Jazeera.
The WHO must ensure that the main parts of the healthcare sector in the occupied West Bank continue operating during military offensives, he added.
Anger at Palestinian Authority’s inaction
Angry crowds have kicked three senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials out of the funeral procession for those killed during the Israeli raid on Jenin.
Dismayed by the inability of the body that controls some parts of the West Bank to push back against Israeli forces, people chanted: “Get out! Get out!”
Footage on social media showed hundreds gathered in front of the PA governor’s office earlier on Wednesday, throwing rocks at its 5-metre-high walls.
Watch: My life as a Palestinian fighter
Here is a rare look inside the Jenin Battalion, a recently-formed Palestinian armed group from Jenin to fight back against Israeli military raids.
In this episode of Close Up, fighter Abu Aseel (not his real name) takes viewers through the city to show how the brigade trains in preparation for Israeli attacks.
Like many young men in the impoverished refugee camp, Abu Aseel feels he was compelled to take up arms, driven by witnessing decades of violence and oppression against his community.
‘They can’t break our spirit,’ say Jenin residents
Waled Rashed Mansour’s arm is blue where an Israeli military dog attacked him, the memory as raw as the wound.
“[The Israeli army] came into our home, they blew up the doors,” the 65-year-old recalled, in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. “They unleashed their dog at me. The dog ran and attacked me on my chest.”
As Israel’s biggest siege on Jenin in two decades wound down, tales of trauma and devastation like Mansour’s emerged from the small settlement that has been home to three generations of Palestinians who had to flee their ancestral land during the Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948.
But also evident was a firm resolve, and a defiance aimed at Israel and its international allies.
Read more here.
80 percent of homes in Jenin damaged: Local official
Nearly 80 percent of homes in the Jenin refugee camp have been damaged following Israel’s two-day raid, according to the city’s Deputy Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub.
“Houses and infrastructure suffered heavy damage in the offensive,” al-Rub told Anadolu news agency. “Almost 80 percent of houses in the Jenin refugee camp were either destroyed, damaged or burned.”
The official also said dozens of vehicles and utility lines were damaged in the raid.
In photos: Funeral held for Palestinians killed in Jenin
Thousands of Palestinians have come out to take part in the funeral procession of the 12 people killed in the Israeli raid on Jenin.
UN has ‘failed us’: Mayor of Jenin
The mayor of Jenin, Nidal Obeidi, said that the United Nations and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) have failed his city.
As the main administrators of Jenin, they have failed to provide any support in the face of Israel’s large-scale raid, he said.
“They have failed us and let us down,” Obeidi told Al Jazeera, saying that the agencies have “washed their hands” of any responsibility.
The municipality of Jenin is now taking responsibility for providing support in the aftermath of the raid, the mayor adding that he is working side by side with the crews rebuilding the destroyed refugee camp.
The damage to Jenin is heavy, Obeidi said, with infrastructure from pipelines to the sewage system and electrical lines, destroyed.
Jenin has faced more than a year of Israeli military assaults, with dozens killed, the mayor said, accusing the Israeli army of committing war crimes.