Jenin West Bank
CNN
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Mohammed Abu al-Hayja was awakened by loud gunshots last month while he was sleeping with his wife and two young daughters. A few minutes later, Israeli soldiers burst into his room door and broke into his apartment.
“They spread all over the house in seconds,” al-Hayja, 29, told CNN. “Two soldiers approached me and told me to get up. One said, ‘Please leave my daughter with her mother.’ I put on.”
Clashes between Al-Hayja and Israeli security forces took place on 26 January in the heart of the Jenin refugee camp as they carried out what they described as a counter-terrorist operation.
“Security forces acted to arrest terrorist units affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization,” the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli security services and Israeli border police said in a joint statement hours after the attack.
According to Palestinian authorities, 10 Palestinians, including an elderly woman, died in Jenin. Hours later, another Palestinian died in what Israeli police called a “riot” near Jerusalem, marking the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in more than a year, according to CNN records. rice field. At least seven people were killed and three injured in a shooting near a synagogue in Jerusalem the next day, according to Israeli police, amid escalating violence in the region.
In Jenin, Al-Haijah vividly recalled the events of January 26 and explained that after being handcuffed, Israeli soldiers took him to the bathroom and forced him to kneel before wrapping a towel around his head.
Bound, blindfolded and stuck in the bathroom, al-Hayja then started hearing gunshots coming from inside her apartment. “I heard it. As I concentrated, I heard one of his soldiers talking to his wife,” he says.
Al-Hayja says he was able to persuade the soldiers to go to his wife. A bullet flew over him, so he crawled into his living room, still blindfolded.
An Israeli soldier removed one of his couches and set up a firing position by a window to cover troops engaging Palestinian gunmen nearby. A spokesman for the Israeli military told CNN it was “standard operating procedure” to use apartments like al-Hayja to provide cover fire.
Representatives of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) visited Jenin a few days after the incident and spoke with Al-Haijah and his family. “Their children were severely traumatized,” Adam Brukos, head of UNRWA for the West Bank, told CNN. “This kind of aggression violates not only international law but also public policy.”
When Israeli soldiers opened fire, Palestinian gunmen fired back, with bullet holes dotting the doors and walls of the family home. Al-Hayja showed his CNN a bag of used shells left behind by Israeli soldiers. “They fired a crazy number of bullets,” he added.
Meanwhile, Al-Haijah and his wife lay on the floor, cradling their young daughters for over three hours. The eldest daughter is 2 and a half years old, and the youngest is 1 and a half years old. “Honestly, I thought the chances of us returning alive were about 1%.
A moment later an explosion rocked the apartment. He later learned that Israeli soldiers had set up his second firing position in his bedroom.
They cut out the window bars and fired rockets at the building where the shooter was.
“I told myself we were going to die,” he said.
From the top of the al-Hayja building, the sprawling Jenin refugee camp rises up the hill towards the horizon. What was once a temporary tent has become a more permanent slum of sandstone houses stacked on cobblestones.
Below is a building that was targeted by Israeli soldiers. After the raid, the structure was so damaged that local officials decided it would be safer to demolish it with a bulldozer.Above the rubble, people held banners depicting the faces of those killed, read “martyrs,” and raised Palestinian flags.
The operation was the deadliest in years, but for residents here, such Israeli incursions occur all too often. Posters in memory of others who were killed line the walls of the neighborhood.
The Israeli Defense Forces say these raids are aimed at terrorists and will open fire when those searching open fire.
But Jenin people see it differently. “Israelis storm camps and shoot anything that moves,” paramedic Abdel Rahman Machalka told his CNN.
The 31-year-old has witnessed multiple shootouts in Jenin and says the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous, even for those like him who are saving lives.
“they [Israeli soldiers] They fired at me five times,” Macharka said. “Even if we wear uniforms, we don’t feel safe.”
“We know we can be martyrs when we say goodbye to wives and children who come to work,” he added.
Machalka witnessed part of the raid on Jenin on 26 January. Paramedics tried to help him, one of three civilians who Israeli officials say were killed there, and seven gunmen.
“They fired at him and he got hit three times,” he recalls. Macharka said he pulled the man away and tried to resuscitate him, but he died.
“We deserve to live,” said Macharuka. He is frustrated not only with Israel’s actions, but also with what he sees as passive attitudes and double standards in the international community.
“Israelis claim he is a terrorist, but when Ukrainians defend themselves against Russian aggression, is it terrorism?” he asked.
On the day of the attack, Ziad Miri’ee peeked out the door after hearing gunshots. He saw an Israeli soldier open fire from his car and hit a young man in the neighborhood.
“The neighbors over there tried to pull him away (from the street),” he said. “The child is dead.”
Millie, 63, says she was one of Jenin camp’s oldest residents, but believes the situation is getting worse.
“When they raided the camps and bulldozed the houses in 2002, it was a lot easier than last week’s three-and-a-half-hour raid,” he said. At that time, during the second Intifada, Israeli forces occupied the camp and destroyed about 400 houses.
“2002 was child’s play compared to what happened here last week.
Milii believes the situation will only get worse as more and more young people join extremist groups such as Islamic Jihad, driven by growing frustration over the occupation and an uncertain future.
“yes there are more [fighters] From this generation,” he says. “This generation was born in war.”
Upstairs at Miri’ee, al-Hayja is still reeling from her traumatic experience. In his house there is no room for bravado, only to worry about the safety of his daughters.
“I don’t interfere or get involved in any of these things. I just went home from work and it all came to a head,” he said. “You are in your city and you are not safe. You are in your home and you are not safe.”
“You are not safe from this occupier occupying your land,” he added. “You are not safe at all.”
