[News] Israel's rampage in Jenin changes nothing

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israels-rampage-jenin-changes-nothing>
Israel's rampage in Jenin changes nothing

Maureen Clare Murphy
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> - 6 July 2023
------------------------------
[image: Man seen from above walks along a wide dug-up road with residential
buildings on opposite sides]

A street destroyed by the Israeli military during an invasion in Jenin on 5
July.
EFE

Israel withdrew its troops from Jenin refugee camp early Wednesday after a
two-day offensive – the largest in the occupied West Bank in two decades.

At least 13 Palestinians, including four children, were killed during the
incursion. An Israeli soldier from an elite unit who resided in Beit El
settlement was felled in what the military is investigating
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-05/ty-article/netanyahu-israel-will-complete-mission-in-jenin-operation-is-not-a-one-off/00000189-219a-df82-a78f-65bad9ab0000>
as a friendly fire incident that occurred while troops were withdrawing.
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad alluded to multiple additional Israeli
fatalities in a statement <https://t.me/sarayajneen/704> published on
Telegram.

An Israeli military spokesperson claimed
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-grapple-with-large-scale-damage-in-jenin-following-israeli-withdrawal/>
that 18 Palestinian gunmen were killed.

Thousands
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html>
marched through the camp on Wednesday during a funeral procession for those
killed.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/136624> that more than 140 people
were injured during the incursion, 20 of them critically.

On Monday, thousands of residents fled during the aerial and ground assault
which wreaked widespread destruction in the camp, rebuilt after much of it
was razed during a massacre perpetrated by the Israeli military in 2002.

Palestinians said that the Israeli military “actively encouraged them to
leave their homes,” the Tel Aviv newspaper *Haaretz* reported
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-05/ty-article/.premium/palestinians-in-jenin-refugee-camp-israeli-army-encouraged-exodus-during-the-fighting/00000189-2582-dcb5-a5df-65f755ca0000>,
despite the army denying reports that it ordered an evacuation.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported
<https://pchrgaza.org/en/as-israeli-aggression-enters-second-day-on-jenin-refugee-camp-death-toll-rises-to-10-including-3-civilians-amongst-them-child-100-injured-mostly-civilians-dozens-arrested-and-infrastructure-com/>
that families told its fieldworker “that Israeli soldiers ordered via
loudspeakers the Palestinian families who were trapped in the camp to leave
within 10 minutes while they gave other neighborhoods an hour to leave.”
The rights group added that Israeli forces “conducted a mass arrest
campaign targeting tens of Palestinians and took them to an unknown
destination after subjecting some of them to degrading treatment and
interrogation.” The Israeli military said that around 120 Palestinians were
arrested.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said
<https://twitter.com/PHRIsrael/status/1676328950878855169> that three
hospitals were attacked during the military assault, “severely damaging
their operational capacity.”

Israel claimed that Palestinians fired gunshots from within a hospital,
“leading to its loss of protection under international humanitarian law,”
the rights group added.

“Yet, reports indicate that Israeli forces did not take all feasible
precautions in their response to the gunfire – as required by law – and
compromised the hospital’s ability to care for patients,” according to
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

Five civilians were injured, three of them seriously, when Israeli forces
stormed the Jenin governmental hospital, “firing tear gas and live
bullets,” while the facility was “overloaded with patients and staff,” the
group added.
[image: Man holds up Israeli flag while another man points to a flag on the
ground as people stand and walk around rubble-strewn street]

Palestinians hold up an Israeli flag left in the aftermath of a military
offensive in Jenin refugee camp on 5 July.
Mohammed Nasser APA images

Defense for Children International-Palestine said that “Israeli forces
destroyed many Palestinian homes by blowing up their walls.”

Additionally, occupation forces destroyed roads and several mosques and
bombed the Jenin Sport Club and Jenin Freedom Theater.

“Israeli forces also shut off electricity, water and telecommunications
access to Palestinians living in Jenin refugee camp,” according to the
rights group.
Couched failure

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told military reporters
<https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-1020387> that the army had
“fully achieved” its objectives. He said that an explosive workshop was
destroyed and the military had secured the ability for occupation forces to
move through the camp during future operations.

The Israeli military spokesperson said
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-05/ty-article/netanyahu-israel-will-complete-mission-in-jenin-operation-is-not-a-one-off/00000189-219a-df82-a78f-65bad9ab0000>
that the strike on the workshop “significantly impeded” Hamas’ capacity,
adding that the army holds the resistance group “responsible for all terror
activities emanating from the Gaza Strip and will face the consequences of
security violations against Israel.”

Keen to present the invasion as a tactical success, the military and Shin
Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, said that thousands of weapons,
including ammunition and materials for making explosives, were confiscated
during the operation.

Israel estimates there to be some 300 fighters in Jenin refugee camp but
during the raid its forces only seized
<https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1rp4lqkh#autoplay> 10 improvised
explosive devices, 24 rifles and eight handguns, suggesting that the
military didn’t make as big of a dent in the resistance’s capacity as its
spokesperson claimed.

Palestinians in Jenin celebrated after Israel’s withdrawal and resistance
factions claimed a victory against occupation forces, with Islamic Jihad
stating
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/7/5/israel-assault-live-gaza-attacked-as-jenin-withdrawal-begins>
that fighters had “thwarted the enemy’s tactics.”

Likewise, Hamas characterized
<https://shehabnews.com/post/127975/%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%81%D8%B4%D9%84-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%A3%D9%87%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%87-%D8%A8%D8%AC%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%A5%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%B1%D8%AA>
the Israeli operation as a failure.
The military’s attempt to present its efforts as a major blow against the
armed resistance, while Palestinians celebrate the withdrawal as a victory,
fits into the well-established pattern of Israel’s repeated offensives in
Gaza.

Israel has termed these operations as “mowing the lawn,” whereby the
military attempts to temporarily set back Palestinian fighters, who
eventually not only regain their capacity but increase it.
This episodic violence, often partly motivated by Israeli internal
politics, is required by Israel in order to maintain its settler-colony
regime enforced by a system of apartheid and permanent military occupation.

Yonah Jeremy Bob, senior military correspondent for the rightwing *Jerusalem
Post*, acknowledged
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-748969> that “the
Jenin fighters are what matters, and Israel, so far, has managed to destroy
only infrastructure.” The improvised explosives confiscated by Israel “are
easy to replace.”
[image: Benjamin Netanyahu, seen in profile from the chest up, looks out of
a window]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surveys the outskirts of Jenin
from the air on 4 July.
Prime Minister’s office

To change the equation in Jenin, the military would need to arrest or kill
some 300 fighters, “and then it may need to repeat that, again and again” –
all while putting its troops at risk of injury, death or capture.

Bob added: “when the [Israeli military] says it neutralized more than 1,000
improvised explosives and weapons, while only killing 12 Palestinians, this
really is its backup headline to obfuscate that it launched a massive
operation that left most of the fighters at large.”

For all of the military’s boasting, “Israel will likely not get anything
more than temporary quiet from Jenin,” according to Bob.

Both Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, and Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu conceded
<https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-748955> that the
military may need to return to Jenin – a tacit acknowledgement that the
military failed to achieve its objectives.
Refusal to capitulate

With each major Israeli military operation, the story remains the same – a
claim to the Israeli public that “terror” groups have been dealt a serious
blow. In reality, the desire among Palestinians to resist mounting
injustices is only galvanized.
Over the past century Palestinians have refused to capitulate to
imperialist forces and colonizers, whether it be the British or the Zionist
militias that perpetrated the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian homeland,
upon which the state of Israel was declared.

The population of Jenin refugee camp is made up of Palestinians who were
displaced during the ethnic cleansing during, before and after the
declaration of Israel in 1948, and their descendants.

No matter how sophisticated Israel’s warfare and intelligence, “the despair
and hatred born out of a military occupation lasting now 56 years, and with
no end in sight, is not going to end,” as Anshel Pfeffer, a correspondent
for *Haaretz* put it
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-05/ty-article/.premium/israels-jenin-operation-shows-how-much-everything-and-nothing-has-changed/00000189-2653-d145-a1e9-3777a4ed0000>
on Wednesday.

For months, Palestinians in Gaza marched on the boundary with Israel
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return> to demand their
right of return, even as army snipers killed and permanently injured
demonstrators. Similarly, no amount of Israeli violence is going to
extinguish the people of Jenin’s demand to exercise their full rights.

The brutality that Israel metes out against Palestinians has meanwhile
never secured the safety of its population on either side of the Green Line.

Indeed, eight people were injured, three seriously, in a car ramming and
stabbing attack
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-04/ty-article/five-wounded-in-suspected-car-ramming-in-tel-aviv/00000189-2063-d145-a1e9-337756930000>
in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, the second day of the incursion in Jenin.

The alleged assailant, Abd al-Wahab Khalaila, a Palestinian from the Hebron
area in the southern West Bank, was executed by an armed civilian.
[image: Several men stand near pickup truck with badly damaged front behind
police tape]

Israeli personnel inspect the site of a car ramming and stabbing attack in
Tel Aviv on 4 July.
Ilia Yefimovich DPA

And hours after Israeli troops withdrew from Jenin, a gunman opened fire at
an Israeli police vehicle, “causing damage but no casualties,” *The New
York Times* reported
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html>
.

Such attacks against Israelis are an inevitable consequence of military
operations resulting in Palestinian fatalities.

Amos Harel, a correspondent for *Haaretz*, observed
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-07-05/ty-article/.premium/israel-wraps-up-another-pseudo-successful-anti-terror-op-but-the-macabre-dance-goes-on/00000189-2288-dcb5-a5df-67fd2f170000>
that this “macabre dance is far from over – a fact which no military
operation will change anytime soon.”
Trauma and palpable anger

Another inevitable consequence of military assaults is trauma among the
Palestinians who endure it.

Families in Jenin described Israeli soldiers blowing up the doors to their
homes and ransacking their belongings to look for weapons. Israeli snipers
commandeered some Palestinian residences while others were razed.
Residents told Al Jazeera
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/5/they-cant-break-our-spirit-jenin-residents-after-israel-siege>
that they believed Israel destroyed roads and other civilian infrastructure
in a vain attempt to turn public sentiment against the resistance, forcing
activists to surrender.

Israeli defense minister Gallant’s hope that the incursion in Jenin would
boost the Palestinian Authority, which has long lost control in the city,
was surely dashed on Wednesday. Al Jazeera Arabic’s live broadcast showed
mourners chasing officials from the Ramallah government out of a mass
funeral procession for those killed:
Rather than strengthening the Palestinian Authority – which failed to
protect people in Jenin, as it failed to protect Palestinians during
recent settler
pogroms
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/palestinian-killed-settler-pogrom-west-bank-town>
– the Israeli raid only further exposed its weakness and emboldened
Palestinians to express their contempt for it.

Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst and former minister, said
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html>
that “one of the casualties of [the Israeli invasion of Jenin] is the
Palestinian Authority, which is further marginalized.”

The online publication *Middle East Eye* reported
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jenin-raid-mourners-kick-out-palestinian-authority-leader-funerals>
on Wednesday that “a palpable sense of anger could be felt in the streets
of Jenin … with many people believing that the PA was negligent and failed
to protect Palestinians.”
On Wednesday, independent UN human rights experts said that Israel’s
airstrikes and invasion may constitute a war crime
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/07/israeli-air-strikes-and-ground-operations-jenin-may-constitute-war-crime-un>.


While Israel claimed the incursion to be a “counterterrorism” measure, the
experts said that “the attacks constitute collective punishment of the
Palestinian population, who have been labeled a ‘collective security
threat’ in the eyes of Israeli authorities.”

“For this relentless violence to end, Israel’s illegal occupation must
end,” the experts said. “It cannot be corrected or improved in the margins,
because it is wrong to the core.”
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