2023-12-24 20:13:00
Mawaheb Marei endures a double tragedy. The death of his loved ones in the Gaza Strip and that of his son, killed at the age of 15 by an Israeli strike in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, scene of daily violence.
When she learned that her son, Eid, was affected on October 25, Mawaheb Marei desperately searched for her child in hospitals only to find him dying.
Eid Marei died from shrapnel wounds to his body, legs and head.
“I wish I could wrap him in a coat,” says the mother, remembering how much her son loved to stay warm in winter. “So many innocent children were killed.”
She mourns the death of her teenager every day and dreams of him at night. A life suspended. She has nothing left to lose.
“Now it doesn’t matter if I live or die in the raids,” said Ms. Marei, who also lost six relatives in the Gaza Strip shelled by the Israeli army in the war against Hamas.
Bullet holes
A bastion of resistance against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Jenin and its refugee camp have been targeted by repeated Israeli raids which have intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, leaving hundreds dead this year.
The incursions have left their mark. House after house, walls riddled with bullet holes and children’s clothes lie on and under the rubble, notes an AFP journalist.
For more than two months, Israeli incursions, settler attacks on Palestinian villages and arrests have continued to increase in this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
More than 300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and settler attacks since October 7, according to Palestinian officials.
The Israeli army claims to target “terrorists”, but many of the dead are civilians, assures the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
In the house of Hani al-Damaj, in the Jenin refugee camp where 23,000 inhabitants are crowded together, according to the UN, the scars of an Israeli raid are still visible. Rubble floods its rooms.
But he considers himself “lucky”, he and his loved ones escaped “death”. His two daughters were sleeping when an Israeli airstrike devastated the Al-Ansar mosque at the end of October, very close to his home, leaving the building demolished.
The stairs of the mosque escaped destruction. They stand up but don’t lead anywhere…
The military operation killed two men, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health, while the Israeli army claims to have targeted and killed “terrorists” who were using the basement of the mosque as a command center.
Unlike the al-Damaj family, other residents of the camp were not lucky enough to escape, testified many Palestinians interviewed by AFP.
Ransacked theater
On December 12, an operation carried out by the Israeli army against “an explosives factory” left 11 dead in Jenin, according to the Palestinian ministry, one of the heaviest tolls since the start of the year.
Added to these deaths is that of a sick 13-year-old boy who was prevented from going to the hospital.
And to the violence is added the frequent humiliations, say its inhabitants.
During the incursion into the northern city, Israeli soldiers “desecrated” a mosque, the Palestinian Authority denounced.
A video, obtained by AFP, shows Israeli soldiers inside the mosque in the Jenin refugee camp using its loudspeakers to recite the Shema Yisrael, a major prayer in Judaism.
Bursts of laughter are audible at the end of the sequence, as the troops leave the mosque and a Hanukkah song is broadcast, again via loudspeaker.
The Israeli army assured that the soldiers involved had been removed from operational activities and will be subject to disciplinary procedures.
The soldiers also ransacked the “Freedom Theater” in the Jenin camp, according to its director.
“What kind of behavior is this from a soldier?” Ahmed Tobasi is indignant to AFP. “Our life, our future, our sleep, our breathing, everything is in the hands of the Israelis,” laments the Palestinian artist.
24/12/2023 19:12:41 – Jenin (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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