Jenin refugee camp is eerily quiet. The Palestinian armed groups, powerful in these alleys, are hiding. The Ramadan fast stuns the locals. Waiting for the Israeli soldiers wears out their nerves. For the past week, the army has been launching almost daily raids in the large city in the north of the West Bank, preferably at dawn and on the outskirts of the camp. She hesitates to penetrate the heart of this miserable concrete agglomerate, where 33,000 descendants of Nakba refugees huddle, the forced displacement of 700,000 Palestinians at the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Naftali Bennett’s government has given carte blanche to the military. They are carrying out arrests and making their presence “felt” after a series of four terrorist attacks that have plagued Israeli cities since March 22, killing 14 people. Two of the assailants are from the Jenin camp. With one voice, their relatives, the Palestinian Authority and the army consider that they acted without orders, without support or networks.
“They are normal Palestinians, says the governor of Jenin, Akram Rajoub, angry Palestinians, who felt humiliated by Israel and reacted to the army’s daily attacks on their community. » Between 1er January and the March 22 attack, soldiers killed 18 civilians in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, according to the UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Three of them were carrying out isolated attacks against Israelis.
A city “besieged”
Mr. Rajoub affirms that his city is today “besieged”victim of a “collective punishment”which he equates to “terrorism. » The army has partially closed the crossing point that links the territories, occupied since 1967, to the Arab cities of northern Israel. It closes around the holes in the wall that encloses the West Bank. Ordinarily, nearly 20,000 residents of Jenin pass through there every day to work illegally in Israel.
The Israeli authorities grant passes to legal workers, which are supposed to contribute to calm. They also allow women and children to pray on Fridays at holy sites in Jerusalem – but not young men. However, Jenin is subject to particular pressure: local merchants and Palestinian tourists who are citizens of Israel no longer pass. Usually, the latter make the city live. In this month of Ramadan, he misses them sorely. Iftar, the breaking of the fast, is very bleak.
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