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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israels-rampage-jenin-changes-nothing">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel's rampage in Jenin changes nothing</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> -
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">6 July 2023</span></span> </p>
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<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-07/050723_jenin_zu_00_10.jpg?itok=tFNZw_7v×tamp=1688596378" alt="Man seen from above walks along a wide dug-up road with residential buildings on opposite sides" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="412" height="232"></span><p>A street destroyed by the Israeli military during an invasion in Jenin on 5 July.</p><small>
<span>EFE</span></small><p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="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">investigating</a> as a friendly fire incident that occurred while troops were withdrawing.
</p>
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad alluded to multiple additional Israeli fatalities in a <a href="https://t.me/sarayajneen/704">statement</a> published on Telegram.
<p>An Israeli military spokesperson <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-grapple-with-large-scale-damage-in-jenin-following-israeli-withdrawal/">claimed</a> that 18 Palestinian gunmen were killed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html">Thousands</a> marched through the camp on Wednesday during a funeral procession for those killed.</p>
<p>The official Palestinian news agency WAFA <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/136624">reported</a> that more than 140 people were injured during the incursion, 20 of them critically.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Palestinians said that the Israeli military “actively encouraged them to leave their homes,” the Tel Aviv newspaper <em>Haaretz</em> <a href="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">reported</a>, despite the army denying reports that it ordered an evacuation.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Center for Human Rights <a href="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/">reported</a>
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.”
</p>
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.
<p>Physicians for Human Rights-Israel <a href="https://twitter.com/PHRIsrael/status/1676328950878855169">said</a> that three hospitals were attacked during the military assault, “severely damaging their operational capacity.”</p>
<p>Israel claimed that Palestinians fired gunshots from within a
hospital, “leading to its loss of protection under international
humanitarian law,” the rights group added.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-07/050723_jenin_mn_00_1.jpg?itok=h6bcGAAj×tamp=1688596378" alt="Man holds up Israeli flag while another man points to a flag on the ground as people stand and walk around rubble-strewn street" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="412" height="273"></span><p>Palestinians hold up an Israeli flag left in the aftermath of a military offensive in Jenin refugee camp on 5 July.</p><small>
<span>Mohammed Nasser</span>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>Defense for
Children International-Palestine said that “Israeli forces destroyed
many Palestinian homes by blowing up their walls.”</p>
<p>Additionally, occupation forces destroyed roads and several mosques and bombed the Jenin Sport Club and Jenin Freedom Theater.</p>
<p>“Israeli forces also shut off electricity, water and
telecommunications access to Palestinians living in Jenin refugee camp,”
according to the rights group.</p>
<h2>Couched failure</h2>
<p>Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant <a href="https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-1020387">told military reporters</a>
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.</p>
<p>The Israeli military spokesperson <a href="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">said</a>
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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Israel estimates there to be some 300 fighters in Jenin refugee camp but during the raid its forces only <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1rp4lqkh#autoplay">seized</a>
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.</p>
<p>Palestinians in Jenin celebrated after Israel’s withdrawal and
resistance factions claimed a victory against occupation forces, with
Islamic Jihad <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/7/5/israel-assault-live-gaza-attacked-as-jenin-withdrawal-begins">stating</a> that fighters had “thwarted the enemy’s tactics.”</p>
<p>Likewise, Hamas <a href="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">characterized</a> the Israeli operation as a failure.
</p>
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.
<p>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.
</p>
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.
<p>Yonah Jeremy Bob, senior military correspondent for the rightwing <em>Jerusalem Post</em>, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-748969">acknowledged</a>
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.”</p>
<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-07/040723_ipmo_00_1.jpg?itok=ZuApXOIN×tamp=1688596378" alt="Benjamin Netanyahu, seen in profile from the chest up, looks out of a window" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="412" height="275"></span><p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surveys the outskirts of Jenin from the air on 4 July.</p><small>
<span>Prime Minister’s office</span></small><p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>For all of the military’s boasting, “Israel will likely not get
anything more than temporary quiet from Jenin,” according to Bob.</p>
<p>Both Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-748955">conceded</a> that the military may need to return to Jenin – a tacit acknowledgement that the military failed to achieve its objectives.</p>
<h2>Refusal to capitulate</h2>
<p>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.
</p>
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.
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>Haaretz</em> <a href="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">put it</a> on Wednesday.</p>
<p>For months, Palestinians in Gaza <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return">marched on the boundary with Israel</a>
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.</p>
<p>The brutality that Israel metes out against Palestinians has
meanwhile never secured the safety of its population on either side of
the Green Line.</p>
<p>Indeed, eight people were injured, three seriously, in a <a href="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">car ramming and stabbing attack</a> in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, the second day of the incursion in Jenin.</p>
<p>The alleged assailant, Abd al-Wahab Khalaila, a Palestinian from the
Hebron area in the southern West Bank, was executed by an armed
civilian.</p>
<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-07/040723_apa_zu_00_3.jpg?itok=i3TMQvhH×tamp=1688596378" alt="Several men stand near pickup truck with badly damaged front behind police tape" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="412" height="274"></span><p>Israeli personnel inspect the site of a car ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on 4 July.</p><small>
<span>Ilia Yefimovich</span>
<span>DPA</span></small><p>And hours after Israeli
troops withdrew from Jenin, a gunman opened fire at an Israeli police
vehicle, “causing damage but no casualties,” <em>The New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html">reported</a>.</p>
<p>Such attacks against Israelis are an inevitable consequence of military operations resulting in Palestinian fatalities.</p>
<p>Amos Harel, a correspondent for <em>Haaretz</em>, <a href="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">observed</a> that this “macabre dance is far from over – a fact which no military operation will change anytime soon.”</p>
<h2>Trauma and palpable anger</h2>
<p>Another inevitable consequence of military assaults is trauma among the Palestinians who endure it.</p>
<p>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.
</p>
Residents <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/5/they-cant-break-our-spirit-jenin-residents-after-israel-siege">told Al Jazeera</a>
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.
<p>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:
</p>
Rather than strengthening the Palestinian Authority – which failed to
protect people in Jenin, as it failed to protect Palestinians during
recent <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/palestinian-killed-settler-pogrom-west-bank-town">settler pogroms</a> – the Israeli raid only further exposed its weakness and emboldened Palestinians to express their contempt for it.
<p>Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian analyst and former minister, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/05/world/middleeast/israel-military-jenin-palestinians.html">said</a> that “one of the casualties of [the Israeli invasion of Jenin] is the Palestinian Authority, which is further marginalized.”</p>
<p>The online publication <em>Middle East Eye</em> <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jenin-raid-mourners-kick-out-palestinian-authority-leader-funerals">reported</a>
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.”
</p>
On Wednesday, independent UN human rights experts said that Israel’s airstrikes and invasion may <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/07/israeli-air-strikes-and-ground-operations-jenin-may-constitute-war-crime-un">constitute a war crime</a>.
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
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