On January 26 the Zionist army killed at least 9 Palestinians and injured at least 20 others in Jenin refugees’ camp. The dead included an elderly woman, according to Palestinian officials. She was identified as Magda Obaid by the Jenin hospital authorities. The number of Palestinians killed by the Zionist forces during raids in the 1967 occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in January is at least 29 people, including five children. At least 15 of those killed were from Jenin. At least 170 Palestinians were killed in such raids in 2022, many of them civilians.
Jenin camp is the northern camp in the West Bank. It was established in 1953 after the original camp of refugees from the ethnic cleansing of 1948 was destroyed by a snow storm. In 2002, the Zionist military force of about 5000 armed terrorists occupied the camp after ten days of intensive heroic resistance. The Zionists terrorists using all kinds of armor tanks and warplanes committed a massacre of tens of people, destroyed more than 400 houses, severely damaged additional many houses, and displaced more than a quarter of the camp’s residents.
The Zionist apartheid state that calls all the Palestinians freedom fighters, terrorists, denied as usual that it committed a massacre and tries to hide that: “Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is very worried about the expected international reaction as soon as the world learns the details of the tough battle in the Jenin refugee camps, where more than 100 Palestinians have already been killed in fighting with IDF forces. In private, Peres is referring to the battle as a “massacre” [1]
Israel that uses state terrorism is denying that occupied people have the right to armed resistance against the occupier. However, in December 1982, following Israel’s devastating invasion of Lebanon six months earlier, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution A/RES/37/43 concerning the ‘importance of the universal realization of the right of peoples to self-determination’. It endorsed, without qualification, ‘the inalienable right’ of the Palestinian people to ‘self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity and sovereignty without outside interference’, and reaffirmed the legitimacy of their struggle for those rights ‘by all available means, including armed struggle’. It also strongly condemned Israel’s ‘expansionist activities in the Middle East’ and ‘continual bombing of Palestinian civilians’, both said to ‘constitute a serious obstacle to the realization of the self-determination and independence of the Palestinian people’. In the four decades since then, Israel’s violence against the Palestinian people and its colonization of their land has not ceased. Up to the present moment, all over historical Palestine, from the Gaza Strip to Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians are still under that same occupation, subject to suffocating control over virtually every aspect of their lives – and the sadistic, unaccountable violence of the Zionist state” [2]
Al Jazeera’s Senior Political Analyst Mawan Bishara said that “in the international arena, combating ‘terrorism’ has a magical sound to it. It’s able to justify anything and everything even when it’s totally incorrect. While Israel justifies its actions on security grounds, the Palestinians “see that as a cynical ploy aimed at humiliating the Palestinian authority,” the analyst said. The raid took place in the so-called Area A, under Palestinian administrative and police control according to the terms of the Oslo agreement. “These young people of the refugee camp are just trying to protect themselves, it’s not like they’re going out in Israel and shooting at Israelis,” Bishara added.” [3]
“Israeli forces also fired tear gas canisters towards the hospital, affecting the children’s division, Baker(the head of Jenin hospital) said. It caused suffocation injuries to children and others, he said. According to the health ministry the situation on the ground was very difficult, with injured people continuously reaching hospitals, as it accused Israeli forces of obstructing ambulances and medics” [4]
“The ambulance driver tried to get to one of the martyrs who was on the floor, but the Israeli forces shot directly at the ambulance and prevented them from approaching him,” Baker continued” [5]
The Palestinians responded to the Zionists terrorists by throwing stones and Molotov cocktails on the settlers and setting on fire tires in the 1948 occupied lands. The intifada has climbed another step.
Stones were thrown at a settler vehicle at the Akraba intersection between Tufuh and Magdalim. Two settlers injured their eyes and were taken to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. At the same time, Palestinians also threw stones at a bus between the small Yakir intersection in the direction of Emmanuel, as well as at two vehicles. Molotov cocktails were thrown at vehicles on Route 5 between Ariel and the Gitti Avisher intersection and fled to the village of Kifal Hares. In addition, massive stone pelting was also recorded at Israeli vehicles between Tapuh and Ariel intersections. The resistance is not concentrated only in the north west Bank, but in the whole of the country. Palestinians set three burning tires on fire on the Chutza Yehuda road, near the Olive junction. Burning tires were also set on fire at the perimeter fence near New Gibeon, at the entrance to the Bnei Hasan camp near Kiryat Netafim, as well as at the barrier between Hatmar Shomron to Itamar and at the junction of the houses in Kfar Hvara. Also, near the Hawara checkpoint, young Palestinians burned tires.
Under the growing resistance, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would suspend security coordination with Israel following the raid (This is likely to be empty words). Rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, following threats to retaliate from the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups. The Zionist air force attacked targets in Gaza. Biden is trying to end the resistance and opposes Abu Mazen’s threat.
In addition, the UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting following the lethal attack on Jenin. The meeting is going to be held in closed-door session Friday requested by UAE, China and France as tensions snowball following the raid on northern West Bank city. No doubt to stop the growing resistance of the Palestinians that possibly has entered a higher stage. It is reported that there was a real clash of the Palestinians and the Zionist terrorists: “Widespread clashes broke out in Nablus on Friday morning, with Palestinian media stating that at least 52 injured in the fighting between Palestinians and the IDF, Maariv reported on Friday afternoon” [6]
On Friday evening a young brave Palestinian killed 7 settlers in Neve Yacob built on stolen land after 1967. It cannot be said that settlers living on Palestinian stolen lands are innocents. However, we do not support individual terror as it does not advance the struggle of liberation of Palestine. It gives the government of Israel the opportunity to further attack the Palestinians. We also can understand the joy of the Palestinians for this action. At the same time, we condemn all the hypocrites like the U.S who did not condemn the massacre in Jenin and Nablus but condemn the killing of the settlers.
Down with the Zionist apartheid!
For a Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/2002-04-09/ty-article/peres-calls-idf-operation-in-jenin-a-massacre/0000017f-df39-d856-a37f-fff9b39d0000
[2] https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/the-palestinians-inalienable-right-to-resist#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20regardless%20of%20what%20is,must%20be%20recognised%20and%20supported
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/26/israeli-raid-kills-three-palestinians-in-jenin-fighting
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-729842