Sara Gomez Arms |
Jenin (West Bank) (EFE).- The cemetery of the Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian city north of the West Bank, has become too small for so many dead.
The extension built a few months ago has already been filled with tombs of increasingly young “martyrs”, almost forty this year, for whom taking up arms against the Israeli occupation is the only way out in this place marked by violence and lack of opportunities.
Among the tumult of white stone tombstones carved in Arabic, where it is read that the majority of the dead were born in the 21st century, the walls of the cemetery are lined with posters and photos of young Palestinians, many smiling holding their rifles, who left this world. in clashes with the Israeli army.
“Martyrs” for their compatriots and “terrorists” in Israel, which sees Jenin as the greatest focus of terrorism in the area and concentrates most of its raids there in the occupied West Bank, in that one square kilometer-long camp.
“Martyrs” in all families
“Here all the homes have several martyrs, or at least one martyr and one prisoner or one wounded. Many join the militias for family revenge,” Mohamed Abu Kandeel, a 26-year-old young man who was injured in 2018 and held prisoner for two years in administrative detention – without trial or charges – told EFE.
Now he works on the committee of residents of the camp, which houses some 20,000 Palestinians, all refugees from territories taken by Israel in 1948, and where more than half are minors.
With five “martyrs” in his family and as a former prisoner, Kandeel knows that his chances of obtaining a work permit in Israel are nil, while unemployment in the camp exceeds 70%.
Another reason why many of their acquaintances also choose the militias, which now, since the economic situation in the countryside is unsustainable, offer a salary to those who join their ranks: “They pay 1,000 shekels (260 euros) per militant, 1,500 (400 euros) if you have a family, and 2,000 (520 euros) if you are very active, or at least that is what they count on the street”, explains the young man.
The militias linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad are very strong in that West Bank stronghold, which has become a bastion of the militia movement since the Second Intifada, but as a result of the escalation of violence that began a year and a half ago, all the armed groups – Islamists and secularists – have united in the Jenin Brigade to fight Israel.
The trauma of 2002
Jenin is the scene of the majority of armed clashes with Israeli troops in the entire occupied West Bank, which closed 2022 as the most violent year since 2006 with more than 170 deaths. But 2023 looks worse, with 88 Palestinian deaths so far and almost half are from the camp. In addition, 15 have died in Israel victims of attacks.
But violence is not new in Jenin, where the trauma of 2002 lives on. Israeli troops invaded the field and a true three-week battle broke out with the militias, the deadliest episode of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), which left fifty Palestinians dead, including civilians and combatants, and 20 Israeli soldiers.
“There were children who witnessed how the soldiers entered their houses and killed their parents in cold blood. Those who lived through this at the age of 5 are 25 today and are the ones who have taken the reins to resist the Israeli occupation with arms,” says Farha Abu Alhaija, coordinator of the camp residents’ committee.
violence as routine
But Farha insists that the situation is much worse now than it was in 2002. “Then we saw them coming, they fenced off the field and we prepared to fight. Now we do not see the end, in the last year and a half they have raided here every week, and sometimes daily. We don’t know when they can enter or how many people to kill.”
“We live in constant panic, in an emergency situation,” Farha qualifies about life with the constant drone of a surveillance drone; with the sirens wailing almost daily as the troops approach; and burying corpses every week.
For her, in the Jenin camp there is no future for anyone. “Our only future is to be the next martyrs”, she assures hopelessly.
That happened to Jawad Bouaqneh, a 57-year-old teacher who never held a weapon, killed by a sniper when he went out to help a wounded militiaman on January 19, at the very door of his house, where today there is an altar with flowers in his honor
“We heard the shots and screams, it was the militiaman asking for help. I went down with my father, the militiaman pointed to the building from where he was shot and at that moment my father collapsed, dying on the spot with two bullets to his head, ”says his daughter Alaa, a witness to his death.
When he died, he was wearing a white T-shirt with the word “peace” on the back, which was soaked in blood, which his daughter says is a metaphor for the future of Jenin camp residents.