Last week, the Israeli army carried out a raid on the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank. During this incursion, twelve Palestinians were killed and the camp’s infrastructure was destroyed. The city, a thorn in Israel’s side, is seen as a hotbed of armed struggle, but it is the entire population who suffers the consequences and who feel they are experiencing collective punishment.
3 mins
With our correspondent returning from Jenin, Alice Froussard
This is Basema Abu Tabekh’s first time back at the women’s center in the middle of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. For three days, during the last raid by the Israeli army, soldiers transformed it into a base. Since then, all the doors have been broken, the windows broken, used by snipers. The offices were searched and boxes torn open.
“ In this center, there are between 200 and 1,000 women who come from the camp to work and meet. It’s not just a center for women, we are there for young people, children, for everyone. It is a real civil society organization. They shouldn’t treat us like that », she is indignant.
Last Tuesday, the armed forces of the Jewish state carried out a devastating incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. During the three-day offensive, dozens of armored vehicles were deployed, and a deadly strike using a kamikaze drone against Palestinian fighters left twelve people dead, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. Palestinian Authority. Shops were ransacked, cars destroyed by tanks and bulldozers.
On Monday, December 18, once again, four Palestinians were killed in another Israeli raid in the West Bank, at the Faraa refugee camp, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported. In response, France intends to impose sanctions on certain Israeli settlers responsible for violence against Palestinians in the West Bankannounced the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, on Monday during a press conference in Beirut.
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“ No one is spared »
Upstairs at the women’s center in Jenin, children’s drawings were taken down from the walls and then trampled. For Basema Abu Tabekh, it is collective punishment. “ Each Israeli army incursion is worse than the last and no one is spared “, she laments.
“ From the beginning, they have been attacking all of us. There, I feel sadness, deep. Especially when I see that they arrested our young people, that they invaded our homes, that they destroyed our streets and brought us back to zero, even lower than when we arrived in the camp. Truly, when our ancestors arrived here in 1948, the situation was better than what we are experiencing now. “, she blurted.
“ The world doesn’t care »
Every week, there are dozens of deaths and injuries. At the government hospital, Ibrahim regrets it: “ Palestinian civilians are very alone, here in Jenin, but also in Gaza. They have no one to defend them, to do them justice. »
“ How many people are killed? We don’t even count anymore. Will ten people in Jenin count? They don’t care, and the world doesn’t care. The people who are killed here are not whites, they are only Arabs. It’s always this double standard. They want to cover up their debacle in Gaza, so they humiliate us here », he concludes. Before specifying: “ It doesn’t change anything, we are a united people. »
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