World · CBC IN WEST BANK
Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, have begun cleaning up after Israeli troops ended their nine-day incursion into the northern part of the territory on Friday. Locals say it was the most destructive in recent memory.
Locals say 9-day incursion, amid Gaza war, the most destructive in recent memory
Margaret Evans · CBC News
· Posted: Sep 08, 2024 5:43 PM EDT | Last Updated: September 8
Abu Ahmed cleans up the barbershop owned by his family for decades in central Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. Its exterior walls were ripped down during recent Israeli military raids. He says the shop was partly destroyed two months ago during another incursion. (Jason Ho/CBC) There is a startled, exposed feel to what’s left of the Ramses barbershop on a major commercial artery in the Palestinian city of Jenin — even though there’s plenty of other destruction all around.
Witnesses say its curved front entrance was shorn completely off by a bulldozer during the Israeli military’s recent and extended incursion into the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Fifty-seven-year-old Abu Ahmed, who inherited the family barbershop, is sweeping up broken mirrors and trying to salvage what he can — and not for the first time.
“The last [incursion] was two months ago,” he said. “It was partly destroyed, but I removed everything to make a new decoration for the shop.”
Ahmed said he can’t afford to fix it this time. Concrete support pillars lie in ruins on the sidewalk outside.
Volunteers help clean up damaged storefronts in central Jenin. Hundreds of Israeli troops, backed by drones and helicopters, pulled out of the area on Friday after a nine-day incursion. (Jason Ho/CBC) Jenin is used to Israeli military incursions, especially in its densely packed refugee camp, long considered a stronghold for armed Palestinian factions, and the Israeli military said the operation was aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups planning attacks on Israeli civilians.
But locals call the most recent incursion, which began Aug. 28, the most destructive in recent memory — involving hundreds of Israeli soldiers backed by drones and helicopters..
Thousands of people either fled to neighbouring villages, were locked down in their homes by fighting or ordered to leave by Israeli soldiers.
Water and electricity services remain cut, and about 20 kilometres of roadway was dug up by Israeli bulldozers, a tactic the military said was aimed at neutralizing roadside bombs but which has ripped up much of the centre of the city.
Residents begin cleanup operation Since Israeli troops pulled out on Friday, the sound of gunfire has been replaced by the sound of a major cleanup operation as residents emerged to take stock.
Neighbouring towns have sent volunteers and equipment to help clear roads and restore downed electrical lines and broken pipelines.
“Maybe they will come and destroy it again,” said Sameh Kalalweh, the mayor of nearby Al-Judeida, leading an 18-strong group of volunteers with 10 tractors and three bulldozers. “And we will rebuild it again.”
Sameh Kalalweh, right, who leads the nearby village of Al-Judeida, brought people and construction vehicles to Jenin to help clear debris. (Jason Ho/CBC) Israel says it’s targeting terrorism networks and that the bulldozers its military used to tear up roads were unearthing explosive devices.
In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had dismantled 30 explosive devices in the area of Jenin and what it called “numerous terror infrastructure sites.”
More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank — most by the IDF and some by Israeli settlers — since war broke out in neighbouring Gaza following a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct, 7, 2023. About 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 250 were abducted and taken to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, displaced 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes and caused heavy destruction across the besieged territory.
Infrastructure destroyed in ‘horrible way’ Out surveying the damage in Jenin over the weekend, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti called it collective punishment. Barghouti, a physician, also heads the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, an NGO.
“What can justify destroying the infrastructure in such a horrible way?” he said. “Destroying water supplies, destroying electrical networks, destroying communication networks, even sewage systems.”
Palestinian officials put the number of dead in the latest Israeli operation in West Bank communities — including Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm — at 39, including eight children.
Mustafa Barghouti, a politician, physician and head of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, displays the damage from the Israeli incursion inside a house in the Jenin refugee camp. (Adrian Di Virgilio/CBC) After its pullout from Jenin on Friday, the IDF said that 14 militants had been “eliminated.”
One of them was 21-year old Mohamed Abo Zmero. His mother, Omm Alabed, said he joined a militant faction four years ago.
Surrounded by mourners at her home in the Jenin camp, she said she had worried but that she was proud of her son and his fellow fighters.
“All of them are fighting for God and for Palestine and not for anything else,” she said.
Om Alabed Abo Zmero, centre, is shown with relatives as they mourn the death of her son, Mohamed, a militant who was killed during the raids. (Adrian Di Virgilio/CBC) “To continue the occupation and oppression and expect that nobody will resist is absolutely incorrect,” said Barghouti, adding it’s a point Israel fails to grasp.
“And the big question here: If every major Western government in the world keeps repeating Israelis have the right to defend themselves, do we, the Palestinians, have the right to defend ourselves?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Evans is the senior international correspondent for CBC News based in the London bureau. A veteran conflict reporter, Evans has covered civil wars and strife in Angola, Chad and Sudan, as well as the myriad battlefields of the Middle East.
With files from Reuters