Aqbat Jabr camp: Latest target of Israel’s deadly West Bank raids
Karam Muqbil, Fidah’s seven-year-old brother, standing amid the destruction caused by Israeli forces storming into their home near Jericho on 1 May 2023
Leilah Warah reports in Middle East Eye:
Fidah Muqbil had to relive the most traumatic night of her life when the Israeli army raided her neighbourhood again on 25 May.
Under the cover of nightfall, troops began a large-scale operation in the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp in the occupied West Bank where she lives. The camp, located southwest of Jericho, was surrounded from every direction and effectively put under siege. Dozens of armoured military vehicles filled the alleys, accompanied by foot soldiers and snipers stationed on rooftops.
Muqbil, 19, and her younger siblings cowered alone in their home as the hours-long operation unfolded. Their only comfort was their father’s voice over the phone, video calling them from a hospital room in Ramallah while caring for their mother, who had been wounded in a similar Israeli raid a few weeks prior.
“Every loud sound sent me back to that night,” Muqbil told Middle East Eye, referring to the morning of 1 May. That day, around 20 Israeli soldiers violently broke into her house by bombing the door and wounding Muqbil’s mother. “Everyone was asleep. It was 6:00 am. I heard something explode, I thought it was our gas bottle. I could hear my mum screaming,” the teenager said, recalling the moment her mother was struck by shrapnel.
Before she could process what was happening, a soldier shoved her into the living room. “I was terrified. All I could see was destruction. I could barely stand. I thought I was going to throw up,” she added.
The soldiers then dragged the neighbours into the house, Muqbil said, forcing everyone to hide under the dining table in the dark, surrounded by chairs, swirling dust, and loud sounds. “We couldn’t even see each other with all the chaos,” she said. For two and a half hours, everyone sat like that. During that time, an Israeli sniper stationed at her bedroom window shot and wounded at least three Palestinians, including 17-year-old Jibril Muhammad al-Lada’a, who was hit in the head and later died in hospital.
Nearly a month later, Muqbil has had to live through two more large-scale Israeli raids in her neighbourhood. The trauma she and her siblings lived through still affects them, she says, bringing their life to a standstill.
Her wedding, originally scheduled on 27 May, has been cancelled, while her seven-year-old brother Karam Muqbil still needs constant reassurance and support. Glancing at her sister asleep in the afternoon, she adds that they are only able to sleep when the sun rises.
Trauma and lifelong disabilities
In recent months, Aqabat Jabr has been a constant target for lethal Israeli military operations, bringing death and destruction to Jericho, a tourist city often less prone to Israeli violence than other places in the West Bank.
The Aqabat Jabr camp was established in 1948 to shelter refugees who were expelled from their homes by the Zionist militia to make way for the establishment of the State of Israel. Today it’s home to 30,000 people and is considered the largest camp in the West Bank in terms of surface area.
The recent raids in the camp follow a trend of growing deadly assaults by Israeli troops on cities across the West Bank amid a resurgence of armed resistance by Palestinians.