Two recent Israeli assaults, on 19 June and from 3 to 5 July, on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank have illustrated a marked growth in the strength of the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation. The assaults were met with stiff resistance from Palestinian armed factions, forcing a humiliating Israeli withdrawal in June and triggering a widespread backlash against the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its ongoing collaboration with Israeli occupation forces.
The Jenin refugee camp, located in the north of the West Bank, was established in 1953 for Palestinians forced from their homes during the establishment of Israel five years earlier. For decades it has been a symbol of Palestinian resistance, a stronghold of the armed struggle. As Palestinian political analyst Diana Buttu told Al Jazeera, ‘There are two places in Palestine that Israel has never been able to fully conquer – Jenin and Gaza.’ Crushing the resistance forces in Jenin has long been an objective of the Israeli occupation.
In June alone, a wave of raids by Israeli soldiers across the West Bank killed more than 20 Palestinians. Two-year-old Muhammad Tamimi was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers while sitting in his family’s car outside their home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. This brutality was a prelude to the 19 June raid on the camp in Jenin. Six Palestinians were killed, including two children, and more than 90 were injured. Such military raids on Palestinian towns have become commonplace: what was different this time was the strength of the resistance. Armed fighters ambushed the invading soldiers, incapacitating an armoured vehicle with an improvised explosive device. The ambushed soldiers had to be rescued with support from an attack helicopter – the first time in two decades this military vehicle has been used for an Israeli operation in the West Bank.
In response to the raid, Palestinian gunmen carried out an attack near the illegal Eli settlement in the West Bank on 20 June, killing four Israelis. Israel’s police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, used the incident as an excuse to call for Israeli settlers to carry out reprisal attacks against Palestinian towns and villages. The following day, Israeli settlers rampaged through the West Bank in what observers described as a pogrom. Hundreds of settlers descended on the village of Turmus Aya, setting fire to more than 30 homes and killing an unarmed Palestinian. Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers were ‘literally clearing the way’ for the mob. The same day, an Israeli drone strike near Al Jalameh military checkpoint in the West Bank killed three Palestinians.
These attacks fuelled anger amongst Palestinians not only against the Israeli occupiers but also at the abject failure of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to defend its people. At a PA press conference following the attack on Turmus Aya, one Palestinian resident, whose home was burned down, made the point concisely: ‘Either you protect us or you arm us. You have 70,000 soldiers. What have they been doing?’
On 23 June, Ben-Gvir urged settlers to ‘run for the hilltops’ – a reference to a call during the Second Intifada by Ariel Sharon, the late war criminal and former prime minister of Israel, for settlers to physically claim as much new territory as possible. Ben-Gvir went further: ‘In addition to settling the land, we need a military operation: taking down buildings and killing terrorists… Not one or two, but dozens and hundreds, and if need be thousands!’ At the beginning of July, Israeli forces launched their largest military operation in the West Bank since the Second Intifada 20 years earlier. 12 Palestinians were killed in the massive raid on the Jenin camp, including four children. Over a quarter of the camp’s population were forced to flee their homes. 80% of the buildings in the camp were destroyed. Soldiers rammed vehicles, tore up roads, and shut off utilities. Three hospitals, along with several mosques, a sports club, and Jenin’s Freedom Theatre were severely damaged. Israel also conducted airstrikes on the camp, and blocked ambulances. 120 Palestinians were arrested.
This operation further fuelled Palestinian anger against the PA. During a funeral for those killed in the raid, PA leaders were chased out of the camp by mourners chanting ‘Get out!’ PA guards used tear gas against Palestinian protesters as they evacuated. It is increasingly evident to Palestinians that the PA serves as an arm of the Israeli occupation, using its forces to suppress Palestinian resistance rather than defend Palestinians from Israeli assaults. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conceded, in an unusually candid statement: ‘We need the Palestinian Authority.
We cannot allow it to collapse… Where it succeeds in operating, it does the job for us.’ This was amply demonstrated when PA leader Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin on 12 July – his first visit to the camp in 11 years. Determined to avoid repeat of the humiliating earlier expulsion of PA representatives, Abbas deployed an enormous contingent of PA security forces alongside a thousand members of his elite presidential guard to clear the way for the visit. More PA soldiers were deployed to guard Abbas than Israeli soldiers involved in the raid itself.
Despite the scale and brutality of the raid, Israel failed to arrest many of the armed fighters who form the backbone of Jenin’s armed resistance. Contrary to the Israeli government’s claim that its objectives were ‘fully achieved’ in the raid, the only thing the raid actually achieved was the seizure of some weapons and the destruction of an explosives workshop. Israel’s defence minister, along with Netanyahu, has already threatened a further attack on Jenin.
Many of those who fled Jenin returned to shocking scenes of their homes lying in ruins, the result of punitive measures against civilians as punishment for the camp’s role as a stronghold of resistance. Yet Jenin’s residents have vowed to rebuild their destroyed homes, as they have had to do many times before – and along with it, the strength of the resistance against both Israel and the PA.
Wesam Khaled
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 295 August/September 2023
