Every time the children of the Jenin refugee camp They go to school, they leave a lot behind them. A plot that, in recent months, has taken on a new meaning. Under the damp earth, lie the lifeless bodies of some of his companions or brothers. In the newly released cemetery of the “martyrs”, there are holes dug in the ground, still empty, for these students. “The children here say that, when they grow up, they want to be fighters or martyrs“, the Mint Salwa Abughali of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The dates of his death, or his “martyrdom” as they say in Palestine, are recent and close to each other. Some agree. Before night falls, under the cotton candy clouds that he has given the rain, several youths They meet to talk with their friends. But they cannot answer them. They speak to them, pampering their altars with flowers, caresses and palestinian flags. At the doors of a closed school, they know that perhaps this too will soon be their bed.
Ahmed Sadi He hasn’t slept in his bed for weeks. “Is Too dangerous“explains this 12-year-old boy, pointing to his completely revolt, like the rest of his house on the main street of the field. The previous afternoon, Israeli troops once again stormed the alleys of the camp in the umpteenth illegal incursion of the year. From the October 7, have multiplied. “They come every other day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon; it seems like a turkish soap opera“, denounces Ahmed’s father, Khalid, with teary eyes as he looked at his battered home. It is the fifth time they have entered. On the top floor, her brother’s house has also been turned upside down. Near the window, there is a plastic chair. “This is where the sniper sits“says Ahmed, pointing to the wide view of the damaged street.
“When the Israelis come and stir things up, they look for evidence to use against us and put the teenagers and the children in prison“, he denounces to EL PERIÓDICO in perfect English. “He is the first of his class,” his father celebrates, fighting the imminent crying with a proud smile. Five months ago, one of her four children was arrested at 18 years old and they don’t know the reasons. He doesn’t want any of his other kids to be taken away from him. For this reason, they spend their nights away from the countryside, which has become one of the main bastions of the Palestinian resistance. Much of the more than 270 murders by Israeli forces in the last two months have taken place in these alleys and inside these houses. Every day at seven in the evening, the Sadis drive to a house on the mountain above Jenin. “It is still unpainted and we have no electricity, but we put some sheets on the floor and it is enough for us,” says Ahmed. It is his safest refuge.
Bastion of resistance
The Jenin refugee camp has historically been one of the strongholds of the Palestinian armed resistance throughout the occupied West Bank. “I don’t want to normalize it, but the people of Jenin are accustomed to all this violence because since we are born, since we are children, it is there,” says Abughali, from the MSF mental health team. Salwa is also a refugee, although she does not live in the countryside. In the last year of continuous aggressions by the Israeli Army, the fighters Jenin have not let their guard down, and civilians and militiamen have paid the price for it. 66% of Palestinians killed since October 7 in the occupied territories they have died in “search and capture operations” by the Hebrew troops in Jenin and the nearby Tulkaremaccording to the United Nations.
“The resistance in Jenin has been specifically formed to combat every Israeli incursion“he points out Irene Huertas, MSF coordinator in this Palestinian city. “It is a group of people who decide to arm themselves to not make it easy for the Israelis, despite knowing that they are going to become targets and that many of them are going to die,” he acknowledges to EL PERIÓDICO. Before October 7, the Jenin refugee camp had already been the scene of the deadliest Israeli attacks since the Second Intifada. Also in this northern city of the occupied Palestinian territories, in 2023, drones were used again, for the first time in 20 years, against houses or mosques to destroy several lives instantly.
State of war
Although the large-scale offensive is concentrated in the Gaza Strip, the atmosphere in the occupied West Bank is one of war. The multiplication of Israeli incursions in places like Jenin are not producing results. “Every time they enter, there are three more people who join the resistance; With each murder, there is more support for Hamas or any other group that better defends its interests,” Huertas confirms. Amidst the disorder of his home, Khaled Sadi collapses on a chair, dejected by pain. “They are trying to show the world that we are the terrorists and they are the hostages“But what can we do?” he asks, with desolation. “Everyone is against us, even the Arabs,” he laments to this newspaper. The ancestors of the Sadi have already been expelled from their land, a village in the mountains. that no longer exists but that you can see its remains, taken by colonistsfrom his house in the countryside.
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“This is our country, these are our lands, we came in 1948 and we are here like a temporary asylum until we can return,” Khaled remembers. He speaks loud and strong, convinced, so that his son can hear him. love for his land It is the only heritage that Palestinians can pass on to subsequent generations. “When I hear that children want to be fighters or martyrs, as a Palestinian, I don’t know whether to feel proud or sad“Abughali acknowledges. “I know it’s just an idea, but as parents, as sisters and brothers, how can we avoid this? When we lose them, our community is affected,” laments this 33-year-old educator.
Before reaching the “martyrs” cemetery, there are the remains of a rotunda that has been destroyed. At its feet, the names of those who gave their lives to defend the countryside during the Israeli invasion of 2002 in the middle of the Second Intifada. Some pieces of the weathered portraits of him have survived the Israeli onslaught. “The symbols of Jenin are being devastated in this larger campaign to terrorize everyone and undermine their morale“, denounces Huertas. For now, they have not succeeded. Neither the rain nor the mud nor the roads raised by Israeli bulldozers prevent the young people from the Jenin refugee camp from approaching to speak with their dead, his heroes. The sky envelops her grief and her pride in cotton candy clouds as a promise of her fight for a tomorrow of freedom.