JENIN (WEST BANK) – FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
Bread, milk, resistance, war and martyrdom: it is difficult to find words of peace for the narrow streets, the dirt, the rubble of the recent Israeli raids that cover the older ones, in what is currently the hottest refugee camp in the West Bank. An entire generation is growing up in the collective myth of armed struggle and the need to die for freedom. The images of their martyrs cover the streets, the squares, the walls of the mosque, the improvised monuments with their photos depicting them with machine guns in their hands, the green headscarf with the battle mottos praising Allah around their heads and the Strips of ammunition hung from his chest. Jenin: Clashes occur here regularly, in July there was a serious operation by the Israeli army, since October 7th the situation has become even worse and last Thursday alone around fifteen boys died in clashes with soldiers. Israel also used aviation and bombed from above to avoid losing men in ambushes.
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“Hamas has never been at home here; we stand in the military tradition of Fatah, Yasser Arafat and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” We were once socialists, not religious fanatics. But things are changing in Jenin too,” Mohammad Masri, chairman of the Popular Committee of Fatah, the local organization that controls the community in coordination with the autonomous government headed by Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, tells us. We meet him as he directs the work of the bulldozers clearing the rubble left by the recent Israeli attack. In the middle of the square and in the dust stands the destroyed statue honoring Jamil Al Hammuri, a 22-year-old who died in battle last year and was the founder of the Jenin Brigades.
Some children pass by without pedaling their electric bikes, strangely enough we see several of them and they happily take us to the area where the photos of the “martyrs” are more numerous. What do you think of Hamas? We ask Ibrahim, who is 16 years old and still going to school. “They have done very well, I support them one hundred percent, I would like to be one of them, even if my older brother chose Islamic Jihad,” he replies, as if being part of a guerrilla organization was the most normal thing on earth . However, those with weapons are not seen, they are afraid of spies and some believe that Israeli agents could disguise themselves as foreign journalists. Two days ago they shot a Spanish cameraman from a distance without hitting him.
For more moderate words, we turn to 43-year-old Mustafa Sheva, who runs the Freedom Theater, a cultural institution founded in 2006 with some Israeli intellectuals that has always sought dialogue between its societies. However, when we ask him about Hamas’ atrocities on October 7th in the Israeli towns above Gaza, he immediately takes offense. “I am really angry with you Western journalists who, first of all, ask me to condemn Hamas. Of course, none of us agree with the killing of innocent civilians. However, it is important to consider the context in which they occurred. Come and live with us for a while. Come and see the daily abuses committed by soldiers or, even worse, by Jewish settlers with the full support of the army. Consider our confiscated land, the checkpoints, the daily harassment, the injustices that have become a system of growing political oppression aimed at depriving us of our national identity. And then you will understand why so many people who have never supported Islamic religious fanaticism are now applauding Hamas,” he says in one breath.
According to him, sympathy for Hamas has grown, especially among the 17,000 remaining refugees in the refugee camp. But even the city’s 75,000 residents are now more inclined to forget their old loyalty to Fatah on the Islamic front. The black jihad flags wave lazily around the only mosque in the refugee camp. Ibrahim Abed, 46, is a pediatrician at the local hospital and says he is “really desperate.” “Until a few years ago I was still hoping for two states. Not anymore: either we fight the holy war or we emigrate. I’m seriously thinking about going to the Emirates,” he admits. On the return to Jerusalem we experience first hand the difficulties of the checkpoints. Normally it takes less than two hours by car, but the soldiers enforce impossible gymkhanas that ultimately take almost seven hours.