For Palestinians in Jenin, recent firefight recalls IDF raids during second intifada

Palestinian journalists take cover while under fire on a rooftop during the Israeli raid in Jenin,19 June 2023

Jack Khoury and Hagar Shezaf report in Haaretz on 20 June 2023:

Many Jenin residents say that Monday’s firefight in their city reminded them of the Israel Defense Forces’ raids during the second intifada.  Eyewitnesses to the fighting said that the forces and the firepower that was deployed was on a size and scale not seen in previous operations in recent years.

The raid occurred in an area between the city itself and the Jenin refugee camp after dozens of armored IDF vehicles arrived early Monday morning at the Algabriyat neighborhood. It is a hilly area that looks over the refugee camp on the western side of the city.

Eyewitnesses say Israeli troops took control of the area and stationed snipers in several buildings. After troops arrested two wanted Palestinians, one of them Issam Abu Alhija, a former security prisoner and the son of Jamal Abu Alhija, who is still being held in an Israeli prison. The latter is a Hamas leader in the West Bank.

Abu Ahmed, a long-time camp resident, said he had the impression that the army was planning to undertake a large-scale operation in the city and its environs. Residents say that when the presence of Israeli forces was detected, calls went out from muezzins for armed militias to come out and confront them, which ultimately led to the heavy fire that followed.

“I was in Al-Awdah Square on the edge of the Jenin refugee camp,” said Hafez, a journalist who was covering the raid. “I was in my car. They shot at random while I was photographing the clashes and the Palestinian fighters.” At a certain point, he said, three bullets were fired at his car. “Two of them I heard flying past me, but the third hit the car door on the driver’s side.”  He claims that the shots were not fired at him accidentally. “Our car is a marked journalist’s car and I was wearing a vest identifying me as press.”

Hafez said he was shot at a second time even though he was wearing clothing indicating he was a journalist. “We were about a kilometer away, on Haifa Street, on the road that leads to the Salam army checkpoint. We were eight journalists from the international and Arab media and we came under direct fire from a sniper in one of the buildings,” he recalled. “We were trapped there for 20 minutes and could only leave when it was all over.”

Jasmin – another journalist who was with a colleague of hers who was shot – confirmed the account. “We’re journalists and we were wearing clothing that identified us as such, [even donning] helmets,” she said. “They started shooting at us. We hadn’t done anything, we were only taking pictures. We fled but they kept shooting at us.”  She said that in the area the raid occurred there were no armed Palestinians, “just civilians, children and journalists.” Like Hafez, she said she and her colleagues were fired on “more than once on the same day.”

Jenin residents say they increasingly fear that amid the escalation, Israel is planning to soon undertake a large-scale military operation. They had been expecting a period of relative calm ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday at the end of the month, which would bring an influx of mainly Arab Israeli visitors and money.  After Monday’s raid, those hopes have been dashed, and they now talk about escalating violence.

The IDF Spokesman had not responded as of Tuesday morning to queries regarding the two journalists’ accounts.

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