Jenin Under Attack from the Israeli Army as Reprisal for the Death of 3 Israelis in Tel Aviv
As part of Israel’s collective punishment, the Israeli military shoot a child, blinding him in one eye
Following the shooting dead of 3 Israelis in a Tel Aviv bar last week and the recent killing of 11 Israelis, including 3 police officers, by Palestinians, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has condoned settler attacks on Palestinians, stated that
‘We are granting full freedom of action to the army, the Shin Bet and all security forces in order to defeat the terror. There are not and will not be limits for this war.”
Today a child in Jenin paid the price of this all-out war. At least one Palestinian has been killed by the Israeli military in Jenin today. When the 3 Israelis were killed, Al Jazeera reported that
United States and European envoys to Israel condemned Thursday’s shooting. In a statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was “closely following developments” and was in “regular contact with our Israeli partners, with whom we stand resolutely in the face of senseless terrorism and violence.”
We await the US and European envoys condemnation of Israeli killings in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank. Of course if the Palestinian gunman had been Ukrainian then he would have been feted as a resistance fighter not a terrorist.
I have helped fundraise in the past few years for the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre, which is in the centre of Jenin Refugee Camp. Today a worker from the Centre messaged me.
Dear Tony
JENIN IS suffering now , Israel closed it we are not allowed to go out or any one gets into ! The news doesn’t show what is going on here, Today the solders attack our home while we were sleeping , And went up on roof to shot any one who move… here some videos this morning … you are the only one who can make our voice heard .. We are not ok
I then got a second message later in the day and two pictures. It simply said:
A child from the center lost his eye today
Children are not immune from Israeli actions because they too are seen as part of a population that has the temerity to resist the occupation. The right of resistance accorded to Ukranians does not apply to Palestinians.
There is also Jewish religious justification that has grown up in Israel for killing and hurting Palestinian children.
The Israeli army today has a large component of religious nationalists in it who adhere to the belief that non-Jewish life is less valuable than that of Jews. Indeed it goes far wider than just religious nationalists.
In 2009 two Lubavitch rabbis, Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzure penned a book ‘Torat Hamelech’ that sanctioned the killing of non-Jewish, that is Palestinian, children and infants. According to the authors the prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’ applies only ‘to a Jew who kills a Jew.’ According to the Jerusalem Post, the authors argued that:
‘it is permitted to kill minors as well, even if they are innocent, when they are situated in a place that blocks the saving of Jews’ lives. Shapira and Elitzur refer to these minors as “blockers of rescue”
“Little children are often situated in this way,” they write. “They block the rescue of Jews and they do this against their will. Even so, it is permitted to kill them because their very presence facilitates the killing [of Jews].”
The authors also advocate the killing of young children if it is foreseeable that these children will grow up to be enemies of the Jews. ” [which was the justification that Himmler gave in a talk to SS Higher Police Leaders in October 1943 in Posen, Poland – TG].
There is an argument for killing the very young if it is clear that they will grow up to hurt us [Jews]. And in this situation the attack should be directed at them and not just indirectly while attacking adults,” write Shapira and Elitzur. “It is also permitted to kill the children of the [evil] leader [of the enemy] in order to put pressure on him, if hurting the children will prevent the evil king from acting out his evilness.”
This is being played out in Jenin and the West Bank today. Last year 79 Palestinian children, including 67 in Gaza, were murdered by the Israeli military. Since 2000 at least 2,200 children have been killed by Israel.
What You Can Do
What you can do is to contact your MPs with messages demanding that Israel lifts the siege of Jenin and write to the press. Collective punishment is outlawed under the Geneva Convention. In other words it is a war crime. Although as we know the mass media is only concerned with Russian war crimes its worth bombarding the BBC and asking why it is selective about which war crimes it reports.
Finally, one of the only places of refuge for children in Jenin refugee camp is the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre which Israeli troops wrecked last May. In their demonic hatred they even ripped up children’s story books.
So please, if you can afford it, please donate to our Crowdfunder to support the Centre.
Tony Greenstein
Israeli citizens are barred from entering the Palestinian city, whose economy relies heavily on Israeli Arabs
Apr. 9, 2022 8:37 PM
Israeli citizens are now barred from entering the West Bank city of Jenin, the Defense Ministry announced Saturday, in a series of sanctions on the hometown of the Palestinian shooter who killed three people in an attack in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories announced several restrictions on the Jenin area, in the West Bank’s north, including blocking local merchants and some businesspeople from entering Israel and preventing Jenin residents from visiting family in Israel, thereby revoking 5000 permits Israel issued for Jenin residents for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan which takes place in April.
Residents of the Jenin area with work permits in Israel will still be allowed to go there, but will face more stringent security inspections at checkpoints, the statement said.
The restrictions are expected to deal a hard blow to the local economy. Arabs from Israel who frequent Jenin constitute about 75 percent of the city’s purchasing power.
Students at the Arab American University in Jenin who are Israeli citizens are exempt from the latest travel restrictions.
Combatants for Peace, an Israeli-Palestinian group, condemned the restrictions and called the defense minister to revoke them, saying that “hurting Palestinian citizens of Israel and collectively punishing all of Jenin’s residents is not the solution, and will only deteriorate the situation.”
Knesset member Sami Abu Shehadeh of the Joint List joined the condemnation, saying that “collective punishment, crimes carried out by the occupation army and a continuous abuse of the Palestinian people will certainly not be a solution to the current crisis.”
He added that “only a diplomatic solution and an end to the occupation are the guarantee for a safer future for all of us.”
On Saturday, a Palestinian militant was killed and a dozen others were wounded in Jenin in a fire exchange with the Israeli military who were raiding the house Raad Hazem, the mas who killed three people and wounded 10 others in a shooting attack in central Tel Aviv on Thursday.
Diaa Hamarsheh who killed five people in a shooting attack in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak was also from the Jenin area – where security forces are now concentrating their efforts, since three of the last five attacks were carried out by people from there, including Saib Abahra, who was killed with two other Palestinians by Israeli forces last Friday.
According to Israeli security forces, the three were responsible for a recent shooting attack near the city of Tul Karm in the West Bank, and planned to carry out further attacks.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Friday that Israeli forces were continuing to act with great forces against terrorism, adding that “we have already made 200 arrests, if needed we will make thousands.”
Israeli forces kill Palestinian fighter in large-scale raid on Jenin camp
Palestinian fighters respond to the raid with gunfire, leading to heavy street clashes with Israeli troops
By Shatha Hanaysha in Jenin refugee camp
Published date: 9 April 2022
One Palestinian was killed and 13 more wounded on Saturday morning as a large Israeli force raided the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The raid began at around 9:30am local time when Israeli special forces entered the camp and headed to the family home of Raad Hazem, a 28-year-old who carried out a shooting at a bar in Tel Aviv on Thursday, killing three Israelis.
Reinforcements followed, and Israeli troops raided the camp from all entrances, to be met by Palestinian fighters residing in the camp who began firing at troops in several locations.
A local source told Middle East Eye that Palestinian fighters also used an explosive device in the heavy street fights, which lasted for nearly three hours before Israeli forces withdrew from the city.
One Palestinian, identified as Ahmad al-Saadi, 23, was killed in the gunfight, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Al-Quds Brigades (Saraya al-Quds), the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, said he was a commander in its Jenin unit.
At least 13 more Palestinians sustained bullet wounds, including a 19-year-old woman, with two in critical condition. Two more were wounded in the shoot-outs and detained by the Israeli army.
An eyewitness, who peferred to remain anonymous, told MEE that Israeli snipers stationed on rooftops during the raid were shooting at passers-by, including his friend, who was wounded by a live bullet while walking on the street.
The Israeli army said in a statement early in the morning that military forces entered Jenin and operated in the refugee camp, without giving more details. No Israeli casualties were reported.
While surrounding Hazem’s family home, Israeli forces took measurements of the house ahead of a potential demolition, Israeli media reported.
Israel often demolishes family homes of those accused of carrying out attacks against Israeli targets, in a policy condemned by rights groups as a form of collective punishment.
Israeli forces also attempted to arrest Fathi Hazem, Raad’s father, but he refused to turn himself in and the troops left without detaining him, an eyewitness told MEE.
Jenin camp fighters
The northern West Bank city, particularly its central refugee camp, is known as a stronghold for a reemerging Palestinian armed resistance movement. Since late last year, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have made several attempts to contain the growing number of armed fighters in the city.
In late December, Israeli armed forces chief of staff Aviv Kochavi said in an interview with Channel 12 that Israel was on the cusp of launching a major operation in Jenin three months earlier, before they called the PA into action. Last week, Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians in a pre-dawn ambush in Jenin as residents marked the 20th anniversary of a brutal Israeli assault on the city’s refugee camp that has become emblematic of Israel’s occupation.
The Saturday raid comes at a time of heightened tensions in Israel and Palestine. Fourteen Israelis have been killed in the past three weeks in shooting and stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and inside Israel.
At least six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the same period in the West Bank, including one shot by a settler.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli police have carried out a nightly crackdown on Palestinians celebrating Ramadan at Damascus Gate since the start of the holy month on 2 April.
More than 30 people were arrested, including minors, and dozens were wounded in the assaults.
