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While all eyes are riveted on the awful events in Gaza, over the past months, a brutal sanguinary offensive has been taking place on the West Bank: 520 Palestinians have been killed there since October 7, most by the Israeli Defence Forces, 126 of them are children, while large swathes of land that were farmed or grazed by Palestinians have been forcefully occupied by “gun-wielding settlers” backed up by the IDF.
One of the NGOs that confronts carnage daily is Doctors Without Borders. Their latest communique focuses on an Israeli military operation that began in the early hours of June 13 in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Twenty-three thousand Palestinians live there. The IDF declared it a “military zone,” allowing no one to enter or leave; electricity was cut off. Despite the number of serious injuries, ambulances, and medical workers were harassed or blocked from entering or leaving.
The camp has been a scene of violence and bloodshed for months now. Itta Helland-Hanse of MSF described another assault that began on May 21.,
“This incursion started at 8 AM, while children were arriving at school and people were on their way to work. Incursions in Jenin are becoming more frequent, and they are highly unpredictable, lasting from hours to days. Snipers are deployed around the camp and city. Military forces in large, armored vehicles block the roads and hinder access to ambulances. It can take hours for people to reach the Khalil Suleiman Hospital, which is normally a two-minute walk from the entrance of Jenin Camp. As the road to the hospital might be a death trap, many choose to stay at home with injuries and conditions which they would otherwise seek acute medical care for”.
The Israelis and their media do their best to ignore what’s going on in the West Bank. One of the few Israeli journalists covering the ongoing atrocities there is Gideon Levy of Haaretz, who just filed a report from Jenin.
In a Single Hour, Israeli Snipers Killed Seven Bystanders at the Jenin Refugee Camp
Here is an edited version.
“Once again, mounds of rubble in the Jenin camp. A putrid stench rising from sewage flowing in the streets, dirt paths, streets reduced to pits and heaps of stones…there isn't a street that hasn't been razed by IDF bulldozers, not a public square that hasn't been reduced to rubble, along with many stores that have been destroyed.
“The IDF has raided the camp and the city in which the camp is situated multiple times recently; every incursion leaves behind dozens more killed or wounded. It looks as though the soldiers would rather be in the Gaza Strip and are compensating themselves by behaving in Jenin as though that's where they were. In "Little Gaza," as the Jenin refugee camp is known, the images speak for themselves…
“Jenin has endured plenty of rough days lately, but May 21 outdid them all. In the course of one hour in the morning, snipers killed seven of the city's residents, all of them innocent passers-by, even though the streets were quiet and the soldiers had no cause to open fire. They shot from high up in two buildings, called Rabia and A-Rein, just outside the camp, and the dead included two teenagers and the director of the surgical ward at the Jenin Governmental Hospital. Over the years, he operated on thousands of people wounded by the IDF in the city and the camp.
“He was the first of the fatalities in Jenin on May 21. Soon after dropping off his children at their respective schools and kindergarten, he arrived at the hospital. He got out of his car in the parking lot and had walked 16 meters – measured by Abdulkarim Sadi, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem --when suddenly, with no prior warning, he came under fire. A bullet struck him in the back, slamming into his spinal cord and killing him on the spot.
“On the slain doctor's balcony, which overlooks the city and its refugee camp, his brother, attorney Qais Jabareen, a resident of Jordan, says that the Red Crescent logo was pasted on the windshield of the car in addition to a sign: "Doctor on call." "If I were a sniper, I would have seen those identifying marks of a physician," his brother says, adding that Aseed never belonged to any political organization and that his only interest was his work as a surgeon. Over the years, he turned down offers to work in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. "He had a commitment to the wounded of Jenin, who couldn't afford to pay and would come to the governmental hospital," Qais says.
“Minutes after they shot the physician, the snipers shot and killed Allam Jaradat, a 48-year-old teacher who was on his way to the school where he taught; Amir Abu Amira, 21, and his uncle, Moamar Abu Amira, 50, both of whom tried to come to Jaradat's aid; Mahmoud Hamadna, 15, who was shot about 100 meters from the site of the physician's killing as he was riding his electric bike on the way home from school (when it became known that snipers were in the city classes were canceled and the students were sent home); another teenager, Osama Hajeer, 16, who worked as a delivery boy; and – the last of the snipers' victims in the first hour – Bassem Turkman, a passerby of 53.
“The streets were quiet at the time, and no one was aware that undercover snipers had taken over two rooftops in the city as the platforms for their killing spree. After investigating the background of all seven of those who were killed in the first hour, Sadi's unequivocal conclusion is that all were innocent civilians who were shot for no reason.
“According to Sadi, the Israeli special forces had never before killed with such indiscriminate abandon. By the end of the day, the IDF would kill another three people, two of whom were, in fact, wanted individuals. In the course of the day, some 50 residents of the city were wounded, some of them seriously.
“And if that bloodbath wasn't enough, just hours later, at dusk, soldiers burst into the Jenin home of Wafa, a 51-year-old social activist who had never been arrested before, ransacked the house and took her with them when they left. She remained in their jeep, bound, for about four hours. Then, as the vehicle started to move out toward their base, it exploded (apparently after a device was thrown at it), leaving the woman seriously wounded; both legs were subsequently amputated above the knee. She is hospitalized in serious condition in Jenin's Ibn Sina Hospital, ventilated and barely responsive.
.The IDF Spokesperson said in response to a request for comment: "During an operation to thwart terrorism in Jenin, which lasted about 40 hours, defense forces exchanged fire with armed terrorists, dozens of whom were hit. During the operation, army forces identified a large number of armed assailants hiding in civilian areas, like the Jenin Governmental Hospital. The circumstances under which uninvolved civilians were hit are under investigation.”
So awful. Thanks for publishing this.