News from Jenin Refugee Camp (15/06/2024)
This picture is painted on a wall near The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp. I took the photo in 2019.
This morning I received a telephone call from a friend who lives in Jenin Refugee Camp situated in the north of the West Bank.
“There isn't a street (in Jenin) that hasn't been razed by IDF bulldozers, not a public square that hasn't been reduced to rubble, along with many stores that have been destroyed... The IDF has raided the camp and the city in which the camp is situated multiple times recently; every incursion leaves behind dozens more killed or wounded. It looks as though the soldiers would rather be in the Gaza Strip and are compensating themselves by behaving in Jenin as though that's where they were. In "Little Gaza," as the Jenin refugee camp is known these days, the images speak for themselves.”
(Extract from an article published in Haaretz || June 14, 2024, written by Gideon Levy & Alex Levac.)
Maisa (not her real name) has asked me to share our conversation and what follows is her account of what is happening in Jenin Camp now. Maisa is not OK. Several times whilst we were talking she broke down in tears, repeating…
“I am not OK.”
She knows she is suffering trauma, her hands and legs shake.
There is currently no electricity in the camp, roads are dug up, homes destroyed.
Yesterday she witnessed a student of hers bleeding to death in front of her eyes – killed by Israeli soldiers. Soldiers Maisa tells me, pose for selfies with those they have injured or killed, laughing with others and sharing the photos on their phones.
Her brother Mohammed is in prison, though no charges have yet been brought. The prisons are overcrowded and infections are rife, passed on easily in insanitary conditions. In the last few days the family have learnt that Mohammed has had one of his legs amputated as a result of an infection, resulting from an injury.
Maisa and another brother Hamza, have suffered from the most degrading acts. Soldiers have pushed their heads down the toilet and urinated in their mouths.
Soldiers wanted to arrest Mahmoud, Maisa’s young nephew (Mahmoud is 8 years old), for having a toy gun. In spite of being told that Mahmoud is a haemophiliac the soldiers beat him around the face.
Families are ordered to leave their homes which the soldiers then enter for parties and sleep. When returning the families are shocked to find used condoms left behind.
“How can they do this when outside people are dying?”
Maisa asks.
People in the camp are existing on bread and water. When the market does open, soldiers eat or destroy the food, drinking and taking selfies. The people want clean water to drink, they understand the dangers of dirty water.
Congregating together at night fifty or so women and children feel there is safety in numbers. If alone the soldiers can enter and do whatever they wish and nothing would be reported. But doing that to a large number would be more difficult to hide.
The old and young are dying through disease and the sick because of a lack of medical intervention and medicines. Maisa’s mum, who so kindly cooked and made me feel so welcome when I stayed with the family, had breast cancer some years ago which was treated, but now the cancer is back and she is very sick.
Tiny babies and little children are left vulnerable as vaccination programmes have stopped.
Pictures from around the world of demonstrations shown on Al Jazeera are seen in the camp, but still the people feel that no one listens.
Maisa asks...
“What do they want from us?”
“We don’t want them to leave their land, why can’t we live side by side?”
“We can’t leave, who will take us?”
“Who are we?” she asks, “Why does no one come to help us?”
Our phone call draws to a close with Maisa asking me if I think she will survive this war. I tell her she must. I tell her she is strong and beautiful and that one day she will teach the children of the camp again instead of shielding them from bullets and watching them die. I really do hope she does.
Karen Whyte
