Six Palestinian martyrs in one day – 19 Septemeber 2023
Jenin – 20-9-2023
By Diana Khwaelid
An Israeli Special Force unit stormed the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank on Tuesday evening, 19-9-2023, around 20:30 to besiege a Palestinian house. Palestinian fighters were inside the house, which belongs to the Abu Al-Baha family.
Jenin refugee camp – after the invasion
Dozens of Israeli military vehicles stormed the camp, and Palestinian fighters confronted the Israeli occupation forces in the attempt to defend the camp and its residents. The Israeli occupation forces damaged one of the houses in the camp, a civilian car belonging to one of the camp residents, and the pylon which distributes electricity in the camp. The electricity in the camp was cut off from the first minutes of the invasion, as the Israeli occupation forces blew up the electricity transformer in the camp. The invasion lasted almost three and a half hours continuously.
Jenin refugee camp
After that, fear and tension reigned throughout the camp and its inhabitants, women and children had their share of this situation. Medical staff and journalists were also targeted while inside the camp. Medical personnel were prevented from reaching and assisting the injured.
Four Palestinian martyrs were killed in this military operation, two died upon arrival at Avicenna hospital and two died later because of serious injuries. The martyr Mahmoud al-Arrawi was 24 years old, the martyr Mahmoud al-Saadi was 23 years old and the martyr Tamo SA was 29 years old from the town of Qabatiya, one of the neighbouring Jenin villages. The youngest of them is the young martyr Arafat Omar Khamaisa, 22 years old. At least 30 people inside the camp were injured by live ammunition. They were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Martyrs funeral in Jenin
In Gaza, Palestinian crowds mourned the body of the young martyr Yousef Salem Radwan, 25, from the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, who was shot by the Israeli occupation forces after clashes broke out between young men and the occupation forces on the border with the Gaza Strip.
The sixth martyr, 19 year old Dergham Al-Akhras from Aqabat Jabr camp in Jericho was shot dead while he and some young men were in the camp while the Israeli occupation forces stormed the Aqabat Jabr camp this morning. Palestinian crowds in a state of anger and vigilance called and grieved the six Palestinian young men in Jenin, Gaza, and Jericho. These killings have raised the number of martyrs since the beginning of 2023 to 250 in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.
The family of Maher Al-Akhras, who is on hunger strike in Israeli prison. Credit: Diana Khwaelid
“I will go on a hunger strike until I get freedom or martyrdom.”
This is what the prisoner Maher Al-Akhras (52), from the village of Hajjah, Jenin district, said after the Israeli occupation forces raided his house and arrested him without charges last Thursday night, August 24.
The prisoner Maher works as a farmer. He owns a farm with cows and takes care of his family of 6 children, the youngest of whom is his daughter Toqa, who is 9 years old. He is a man who loves his family, supports the families of prisoners and martyrs and is always present for help and solidarity.
He is considered one of the most famous prisoners who went on an open hunger strike in order to get freedom. He is a former prisoner, and the Israeli occupying forces have not brought clear charges against him.
Credit: Diana Khwaelid
Maher suffers from a difficult health situation, and his wife said that she feels afraid for her husband, since he suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes, and recently underwent surgery. The lawyer also said that he is in pain and does not feel well. Maher refuses to take any medication from the Israeli prison administration and to get treatment, because he was arrested without charge and wrongfully. He is one of dozens of prisoners who were arrested without a clear charge, and are held under administrative detention in Israeli jail. This is one of the ways through which the occupation imposes its control on the Palestinian people.
His daughter Toqa added that she worries for her father, and she stressed that the occupation is unjust and brutal and that she misses him very much. Like any child in the world, she has the right to live with her father in peace.
Her mum assured her that Maher is a strong person and believes in his just cause, that his will will not be broken, that the Lord is taking care of him, and she hopes that he will be released.
Maher’s mother, who is 74 years old, said that she misses her son, and she is worried for him because of his health, and prays for him day and night, until he comes out safely. She believes that the occupation’s racist practices will not continue, and that the occupation will disappear.
Maher, who has been on hunger strike for 6 days, is sacrificing his life and health in order to demand his freedom, to tell the occupation that the Palestinian people have the right to live in freedom and peace.
When I arrived in Jenin, on Tuesday July 4th, the city was a battlefield, the streets were destroyed and burnt, tear gas canisters and bullets lay on the ground, the air was filled with smoke, the sound of live bullets, the screams of young men. The residents were in a state of high alert.
The day before, Monday the 3rd of July, residents were awakened by the sound of the explosion aerial bombardment by drones and Energa anti-tank rifle grenades. More than 2,000 soldiers and about 450 military vehicles invaded the city.
Ashraf Al-Saadi, a resident of the camp told me: “We are civilians. We did not go to the Israeli military sites. The occupation came to us. What did we do!? How do we deserve this?”
Jenin Refugee Camp was destroyed once before in 2002. In 2023 alone, there have been three massacres: In the first the occupation forces killed 12 martyrs, in the second the occupation forces killed 8 martyrs, and in the last most recent massacre the occupation forces killed another 12 martyrs, including 3 high school students.
As I watched the occupation forces turn the streets of Jenin upside down and transform them into a burning battlefield dominated by smoke and blackness, I asked myself: “Will Jenin be able to rebuild and light up again?”.
Ashraf Al-Saadi, told me that since the first hours of the operation, while ambulance teams struggled to reach the besieged houses and the injured inside the camp’s lanes Israeli snipers were deployed heavily on tall buildings on the outskirts of the camp, including in his own home. As we entered Ashraf’s house he explained: “The occupation forces broke into my house, which is part of a building consisting of four floors. We are four families, one living on each floor. The occupation forces detained us all, four families in one room, and seized the rest of the house and used it to monitor the movements inside the camp and to deploy snipers in the house. They damaged the house, broke and vandalized furniture, and stole some money.”
On the second day of the incursion, the Israeli occupation forces closed the entrances to the city, especially the main road of the camp, with jeeps and armored vehicles. This left the camp residents without water or electricity for more than 30 hours. Many families were forced to leave the camp. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the UN 3,500 people were internally displaced during the operation.
A mother cat tries to protect her kittens in the ruins of Jenin camp. Photos by D.N.
I went to Jenin government hospital. In my mind I can still hear the heavy sound of bullets fired by the Israeli occupation forces at unarmed civilians in the vicinity of the hospital, which is only 70 meters away from the camp. Everyone was a target, including the medical teams who were trying to reach the injured and the press teams that were documenting the events the occupation forces were targeting everyone, they did not differentiate.
The destruction caused by the occupation to the houses and infrastructure in the camp includes: 4 buildings completely destroyed, 25 residential buildings partially damaged, and roughly 250 damaged residential units. The number of commercial and service buildings damaged reached around 150 and a mosque was partially destroyed. The Israeli occupation forces completely destroyed the infrastructure, roads, and streets: electricity and water were cut off, and sewage pipes were destroyed.
Women walking by the damaged mousqe in Jenin camp. Photo by D.N,
Turkmen, another camp resident, lives with his family on the ground floor of a building, his brother’s family live on the second floor. In the early hours of the military aggression on Jenin camp his home and his brother’s home were bombed from the air. Both homes were completely burnt. In the burning house, new furniture bought by Turkmen’s eldest son, who was preparing for his wedding next Friday, was charred. ”I was preparing to take my son’s furniture to his new home, but the invasion surprised us and we couldn’t move anything, even our clothes were completely burned.”
UNRWA, The International Relief Agency for Palestine refugees, provided food parcels and medicines to help the camp’s residents.
The camp residents told me that despite being afraid, hungry, thirsty and unsafe they will not surrender to the aggression of the occupation.
But we are left asking: who will condemn the Israeli occupation for its crimes against the Palestinian people in general, and against the Jenin camp in particular?
20th April 2015 | Frida and Jenny | Jenin, Occupied Palestine
The room was overflowing with people who had come to witness the opening of the play The Siege. Pushing our way through the throng we managed to find some seats, squashed in the middle of a diverse and lively audience. We were sitting in the Freedom Theatre, a Palestinian community-based theatre and cultural centre located in Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern part of the West Bank. Started in 2006, the theatre’s aim is to generate cultural resistance through the field of popular culture and art as a catalyst for social change in the occupied Palestinian territories. So, after two months of rehearsals, they were finally ready to show us their eagerly anticipated new play.
Poster for the play – The Freedom Theatre
The day started off with a theatrical memorial for Juliano Mer-Khamis, one of the founders of the Theatre School who was shot and killed in 2011 by a masked gunman. We then watched Journey of a Freedom Fighter; a documentary that recounts the story of Rabea Turkman, a talented student of the theatre who turned from armed resistance to cultural resistance. He was subsequently shot by the Israeli army and died a few years later as a result of his injuries.
Inspired by the true story of a group of freedom fighters, now exiled across Europe and Gaza, The Siege tells of a moment in history that took place during the height of the second intifada in 2002. The Israeli army had surrounded Bethlehem from the air and on land with snipers, helicopters and tanks, blocking all individuals and goods from coming in or out. For 39 days, people were living under curfew and on rations, with their supply of water cut and little access to electricity. Along with hundreds of other Palestinians, monks, nuns and ten activists from the International Solidarity Movement, these five freedom fighters took refuge in the Church of the Nativity, one of the holiest sites in the world.
Scene from the play – photo by ISM
The play gives some insight into what it was like to be trapped inside the church, surviving on so little, with the smell of decaying dead bodies in the building, shot by Israeli snipers. It brings out the hard choice they were faced with between surrendering or resisting until the end. However, no matter what they chose, they were given no other option than to leave behind their family and homeland for ever, as all the freedom fighters – in reality 39 – were deported and have not been able to come back since.
The play exceeded all expectations! Everyone seemed amazed by what they had just witnessed. We talked with Osama, a student and a friend from the Freedom Theatre School who was brought up in Al Azzeh refugee camp, in Bethlehem. His words were lost in the power of his emotion. “I would have loved to play in that show!”, he finally managed to share. Only 12 at the time when the tanks entered his city, the show related so much to his childhood and brought back many memories of that time in his life. He recounts how the loud bang, heard at the start of the play, was a reenactment of the shot that had pierced the city’s water tank. This sound is still strongly engrained in his mind as it was the start of the long and difficult days that the inhabitants were about to face. “We are under occupation, but we are not weak. We stand up with what we can, be it our bodies, our voices or our guns!” – Osama believes in armed resistance as one of many ways to fight the occupation. And as an actor, it is important for him to represent these resisters in “another way, a good way. We die because we want to live!”
Alaa Shehada, the assistant director of the play, explained a bit about the making of The Siege. During their research period, they had gone over to Europe and interviewed 13 refugees in order to hear their stories first hand. They even managed to get an interview with one of the 26 refugees in Gaza. He explained how this story is not just about what happened during 2002, but is a microcosm of the whole Palestinian struggle. It reveals the continuous Israeli propaganda that has been going on since 1948, representing the Palestinians as terrorists through false accusations. In this particular situation, the Israeli army blamed the fighters for having attacked the church and holding the monks inside it. This has later been proven to be a lie. The truth being that the monks had allowed the fighters in and they were working together during the whole time of the siege. Ultimately, during the 67 years of Israeli occupation, even with the whole world watching, there has been no justice for the Palestinian people. 50% of Palestinians are refugees from their own country and still have not been given the right to return.
Alaa Shehada, assistant director of the play – photo by ISM
At the Freedom Theatre, Cultural Resistance is their way of defying the occupation. Ahmed Jamil Tobassi, one of the actors from the show, explained that among many other things, theatre creates a context that can support other forms of resistance. It revives stories, gives people a way of expressing themselves and ultimately frees the mind. The idea of cultural resistance is to work alongside other forms of resistance, not against. Yet “if you cannot start by deconstructing the occupation within yourself, how are you going to be able to free the country from the bigger, external occupation?” argues Jonatan Stanczak, managing director of the Theatre.
During the months of May and June, this play will be touring the United Kingdom, a country the theatre group has not yet been too. It is also as a message for the British to take responsibility for their prominent role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the ongoing occupation.
Following the declaration of finding of the bodies of 3 Israeli settlers who had been missing since 12 June 2014, Israeli forces have escalated their attacks against Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Last night and this morning, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian civilian in Jenin refugee camp in the north of the West Bank, destroyed 2 houses in Hebron in the south of the West Bank, and launched a series of air strikes against several targets in the Gaza Strip. Thus, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the disappearance of the three Israeli settlers has mounted to 12, including 9 civilians, one of whom is a child. This escalation, which has been ongoing since the disappearance of the three Israeli settlers, in accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the Israeli offensive against the oPt in retaliation for the deaths of the three settlers.
According to investigations conducted by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), in the early morning of Tuesday, 01 July 2014, an Israeli undercover unit moved into Jenin refugee camp in the north of the West Bank, traveling in a civilian car with a Palestinian registration plate. Members of the unit stationed in al-Samran quarter in the south of the camp. At approximately 03:05, Yousef Ibrahim Ahmed Ibn Gharra “Abu Zagha,” 20, was going back home after buying some foodstuffs for the pre-fast meal of Ramadan Month. Immediately, members of the Israeli undercover unit opened fire at him. He was instantly killed by 3 bullets to the heart and the left shoulder and forearm. A number of civilians evacuated the victim’s body to Dr. Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin. According to eyewitnesses, the area was completely quiet when members of the Israeli undercover unit fired at the victims.
In a serious precedent, Israeli forces destroyed 2 houses belonging to the families of Marwan Sa’di al-Qawasmi and ‘Aamer ‘Omar Abu ‘Eisaha in Hebron, on the ground of suspicions that the two Palestinians were involved in the abduction of the three Israeli settlers, before arresting, questioning and convicting them. Al-Qawasmi’s house is a 110-square-meter flat located on the first floor of a 3-story building owned by his father and brothers, while Abu ‘Eisha’s house is a 100-square-emter flat in a building belonging to his father. PCHR stresses that the destruction of the two houses is part of the collective punishment policy and reprisals against Palestinian civilians in violation of Article 33 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to Protection of Civilians in Times of War which provides that: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes launched 11 airstrikes, in which they fired 44 missiles, against paramilitary training sites, agricultural stores. The airstrikes were launched against targets in most areas in the Gaza Strip. Three Palestinian workers sustained bruises, and Palestinian civilians were extremely terrified by the sounds of the heavy explosions.
PCHR strongly condemns this crime, which further proves the use of excessive force by Israeli forces against the Palestinian civilians in disregard for the civilians’ lives. Moreover, PCHR condemns the destruction of the two houses in Hebron and the airstrikes against the Gaza Strip. Therefore, PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective actions to put an end to such crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions.
