“The soldiers ate our food, took everything out of the refrigerator, and left it open. They even urinated in more than one place in the house even though there were several bathrooms”. – Ala’ Bawaqneh
Ala’ Bawaqneh was finally able to return to her home in Jenin camp, six days after she was forced, along with her family, to leave the house that the Israeli occupation forces had decided to turn into a military barracks.
Only when the Israeli army withdrew from Jenin and its camp on Friday morning, after ten days of a devastating invasion, the horrific details were revealed.
This invasion was the longest since 2002. It resulted in the killing of 22 Palestinians, the wounding of dozens, and enormous destruction of the area.
But the people of Jenin did not waste any time. From the early hours of Friday, they started working on restoring some kind of normalcy to life in the city despite all the destruction and tragic losses they endured during the Israeli invasion of the area.
They were finally able to put to rest their loved ones whose bodies had remained trapped in the besieged hospitals throughout the military campaign.
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Human Shields
Ala’ lives with her family of nine in a four-story residential building in the Al-Saha area in Jenin camp.
Three days into the invasion, the Israeli army surrounded the building and ordered all occupants to gather at the front door.
“We left our homes and stood in front of the building. We were seven, including children and a pregnant woman,” Ala’ told the Palestine Chronicle.
“One of the soldiers ordered my sister to walk in front of them as a human shield while they searched the upper floors,” she added.
Following their search of the building, the Israeli soldiers forced them all to stay in a small room with no access to water, electricity, or food. They locked them inside and ordered them not to make any noise.
From the small room they were trapped in, residents of the building could clearly hear the Israeli soldiers as they were violently conducting their searches and vandalizing the furniture of the apartments. While the children were terrified and silently crying, Ala’ spent her time praying for the nightmare to end.
“They were heavily armed with all kinds of weapons and had police dogs with them,” she said.
“We were extremely scared because we often heard sounds of gunfire or shelling, while their bulldozers were destroying the streets surrounding the building.”
Two hours into the ordeal, the Israeli occupation soldiers ordered them to leave the building. In the beginning, Ala’s family refused to follow their orders, due to the deteriorating security situation in the area but were eventually forced to leave.
They walked through the destroyed streets and witnessed firsthand how their beautiful city was turned into rubble, before an ambulance drove them to the Governmental Hospital, from where they headed to a relative’s house.
Six days after their forced departure, the family could finally return home only to witness the extent of the destruction it endured.
The soldiers had turned it into a snipers’ corner, and for that end, they had dug big holes in the walls, especially in Ala’s brother’s apartment on the fourth floor, which he was preparing for his anticipated wedding.
“They vandalized everything; literally everything in our house was vandalized,” Ala’ said in tears.
“The soldiers ate our food, took everything out of the refrigerator, and left it open. They even urinated in more than one place in the house even though there were several bathrooms,” she continued.
Ala’s family learned from the camp residents that their house had also been transformed into an interrogation and detention center for detainees. Young Palestinians who were subjected to different kinds of torture, their hands tied, their eyes blindfolded, were taken to the house in which they remained for long hours and sometimes days.
The windows of the house were intentionally smashed and the curtains were removed. Ala’ and her family are currently working on cleaning the apartments and restoring what needs to be fixed to make it livable again.
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Speaking to the Mayor
Despite all of this, Ala’ is somehow ‘lucky’ since several of the camp’s houses will never go back to what they were, due to the massive destruction they endured. Other houses are completely uninhabitable due to their complete demolition.
The mayor of Jenin, Nidal Obeidi, told the Palestine Chronicle that 80 homes were demolished as a result of the Israeli invasion while hundreds of homes were partially damaged and in need of major reparation before becoming habitable again.
Twenty-five kilometers of infrastructure were deliberately and completely destroyed by the Israeli occupation army, which resulted in power, water and communications outages for tens of thousands of Palestinians in the city and its camp.
“The destruction that occurred in the eastern neighborhood, which constitutes approximately a third of the area of Jenin, is considered huge compared to the number of days of the invasion,” the mayor said.
“There are houses that were bombed and mosques whose walls and fences were demolished. All the streets were destroyed and dozens of vehicles were crushed without justification,” he added.
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Dozens of Palestinian families were locked inside their homes for days and risked being shot at if they even ventured to peek outside of the windows.
They only dared to leave their homes following news of the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army from the area when they witnessed the unprecedented destruction that had affected the city.
The municipality crews have started working on partially restoring electricity, water, and communications. They are also fixing several of the city’s streets to allow residents to move and meet their daily needs, especially since the new school year is approaching.
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The Israeli occupation army’s military operation in Jenin is similar to other devastating raids in other areas of the West Bank.
The story of Ala’ is the story of thousands of other Palestinian families who had to endure human and material losses during the latest brutal Israeli offensive.
Like her, they remain hopeful that their collective nightmare will end, and for Jenin to be rebuilt again.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Fayha’ Shalash is a Ramallah-based Palestinian journalist. She graduated from Birzeit University in 2008 and she has been working as a reporter and broadcaster ever since. Her articles appeared in several online publications. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
This unholy “war” characterized by its crimes against humanity cannot be justified. The zionists are a satanic force and will eventually be held accountable. Making a deal with the devil is never a wise decision. May peace and justice prevail for the innocent Palestinians and Jewish people who want only to live in peace, the sooner the better.