The destroyed streets in Nur Shams and Tul Karm leave no room for doubt. The West Bank is a war zone
A child in Nur Shams among the ruins of buildings, 6 September 2024
Hagar Shezaf reports in Haaretz on 8 September 2024:
There was a stench of sewage at the entrance to the Nur Shams refugee camp on Thursday.
The main street between the camp and Tul Karm was totally destroyed. One car was stuck in the middle of the road after falling into a pothole, sewage flowed along it mixing with the soil to create mud the camp residents try to jump over. Roadside shops and houses were also crushed. Everything was the result of the Israeli army incursion into the city and its refugee camp in late August.
“This is the third time in two months,” said the owner of a shop, the exterior of which was almost completely destroyed. “There is a house above,” he said, pointing to the second floor above his shop, “but it’s dangerous, because they damaged the foundations. We live above and left when the army came, fleeing to relatives, because my children are frightened. I returned today, but my family did not because it’s dangerous to live here.”
He said that the last time his shop was destroyed was fifty days earlier, after which he invested thousands of dollars in repairs, not including food and materials, and before that the army also destroyed it in June.
The damage to the shop is the result of the huge bulldozers the army uses to enter the Palestinian towns and refugee camps in the past year, claiming that it is necessary to strip the roads because militants were putting explosives under the pavement. The bulldozers brought down roadside buildings as they did so.
“We heard the noise of the bulldozers and the tremors began. The entire house shook with us inside. We stayed inside until they left, and in the morning we saw the destruction,” said a camp resident. “We stayed at home, samdin [clinging to the ground]. This was an attempt to uproot us, they’re trying to uproot the camp’s residents from our homes, but we won’t go,” she added.
The Nur Shams refugee camp is one of the targets of the army operation, which the army calls “Operation Summer Camps” that is concentrating on the northern West Bank. Although the Palestinians reported on Friday that the army had left both Tul Karm and Jenin, the army says the operation is not yet over, and sources said that it may last until the start of the Jewish High Holy Days which start in early October.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank says that, since the start of the operation, seven Palestinians have been killed in Tul Karm out of the 36 killed across the West Bank during the operation.
For the camp’s residents, the current operation is part of a longer chain of intensive operations in the past year. In the afternoon, the local internet provider arrived to fix the fallen network caused by the army’s operations in the area. Workers said that they arrive every time after an army raid on the camp. The massive destruction to infrastructure prompts the residents to compare the Israeli army’s methods to what is happening in Gaza.
The echo of the presence of armed groups is reflected in people’s suspicion of strangers and photographers. There is a poster on the streets saying “Flood leadership”, in reference to the October 7 attack, called in Arabic the Al-Aqsa Flood, with pictures of Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Saleh Al-Arouri.
That morning, residents thought that the army had left Tul Karm altogether, after days in which it had concentrated its operations in another refugee camp in the city of the same name – Tul Karm refugee camp. However, the army returned to the Nur Shams camp a few hours later. Its return surprised journalists who had come there in order to assess the damage and talk to residents. Christine Rinawi, a correspondent of Al-Araby TV, testified that a soldier had fired in the direction of her and her team when the army returned to the area, even though they were showing that they were holding microphones and could be identified as journalists wearing labeled safety vests.
Throughout the midday hours, large army bulldozers moved back and forth along one of the city’s main roads, along with army and Border Police jeeps. At some point, a jeep passed by a group of Palestinian journalists that had gathered there, using its loudspeaker to call out a cheer for Beitar Jerusalem, a soccer team whose fan base is known for its racist anti-Arab attitudes, before moving on.
Puddles of sewage and destroyed roads in Nur Shams, 7 September 2024
The road inside the camp was also completely ripped up. In fact, there was no road left, only mud. The Red Crescent, in an attempt to reach elderly and sick people who had called ambulances, had to get through using a small all-terrain vehicle in order to overcome the rough road conditions, but even it could not advance more than a few hundred meters. One of its teams carried an old woman on their backs and another old man on a stretcher as they tried to get them to the hospital. When they left the area, the medics’ boots were totally covered in mud.
One resident who was evacuated by the all-terrain vehicle was carrying a bag full of equipment, said that “we have two diabetic family members and we ran out of medicine. We didn’t know what to do.” “The situation inside is very difficult. We received a call saying that an old woman was feeling unwell inside the camp and that almost all the entrances were closed by rubble. The woman we just evacuated has diabetes and high blood pressure. Thank goodness we managed to reach her,” said a member of a Red Crescent team. “There is a shortage of water, electricity and provisions there. We, as the Red Crescent, also distribute food,” he added. “There is also a scarcity of medicine. There are people with diabetes who call us, but it’s hard to reach everyone.”
From time to time, an explosion is heard from within the camp, with black smoke seen rising. Some of the camp’s inhabitants left after the army moved in.
At the entrance to the camp one can see some pamphlets the army scattered there, in which it calls armed militants criminals, accusing them of hiding weapons in civilian buildings. “Criminals with non-local interests have taken over the city of Tul Karm, bringing with them corruption and destroying the city’s economy and future,” says a pamphlet, at the bottom of which is a symbol of a skull and crab. “When you return to your homes, you will be returning to a safer place. It is your choice whether to move forward toward a future of economic prosperity or to allow criminals to control your future.”
The destruction wrought by the army was not restricted to the refugee camps, but included the city itself. Tul Karm is one of the West Bank’s main cities, which in ordinary days is a bustling one. Army forces destroyed roads as well as one of the city’s main squares, Shweika Square, also named Ahmed Yassin Square, after the founder and former leader of Hamas who was assassinated by Israel. The square lies at the center of the city, in an area full of shops and restaurants.
On Thursday, one could see an occasional military jeep there, while army forces were operating inside the refugee camp. The owner of a sandwich shop quickly opened its door, pulled out a few baguettes and took them outside. “We were shut down for five days. This morning [when the army left], we opened up and there were people in the streets, everything went back to normal. But suddenly, the army returned and we locked up again,” he said. He said he would take the bread and distribute it to people.
The scene of IDF forces in broad daylight in the middle of the city, and the main square destroyed, showed conclusively that this was now a war zone.
“Since October 7, everything they do is out of revenge against Palestinians, since they failed in defending themselves in Gaza,” said one city resident on Thursday. “But by destroying Palestinian infrastructure they will make Palestinians hate them more, feeling more disgusted by them. All we’ve seen on the part of Israel since 1948 is destruction, with one calamity after another. That’s why all Palestinians now support the war against Israel, since it doesn’t give us hope for peace or for anything else in life.”
A Palestinian refugee stands in front of his shop that was partly destroyed during the Israeli army operation in Tulkarem, West Bank, on 5 September 2024
When referring to October 7, he stated that he did not support the killing of civilians, adding that Israel’s objective of causing Palestinians to dissociate themselves from armed militants is doomed to fail. “I don’t want my children to die, but when someone is willing to give his life for a people and its goal, I cannot stop him. We are under occupation. They are committing genocide, killing, destroying, torturing. The only solution is for Israel to leave this land.”
The IDF spokesman responded to the Al-Araby journalists claim that her and her team were shot at: “we are not familiar with the claim of that correspondent. We have not received any details or documentation of gunfire aimed at journalists. We should emphasize that the IDF operates against military targets, with military objectives. It does not deliberately harm journalists. When we receive further details, we will examine them as is customary.
“Given a series of security-related events and the operation of terrorists in the northern part of Samaria, the IDF embarked on a number of operations there, with the aim of uprooting terror from the West Bank. In this campaign, the IDF is operating in Tulkarm, in a civilian area in which intense fighting is taking place, with terrorists regrettably using civilians and infrastructure to shield themselves.
“In recent days, dozens of explosive devices have been located in the area, planted by terrorists along roads and civilian infrastructure. The IDF locates and neutralizes these devices in order to prevent harm to civilians and to its own forces. The IDF tries to minimize damage to civilian infrastructure as much as possible. When infrastructure is damaged in a manner that directly impacts civilians in the area, the IDF take action quickly, where possible, to enable repairs to be made.”
This article is reproduced in its entirety