The Electronic Intifada 11 March 2025
Palestinians walk through the streets of Jenin near an Israeli military vehicle on 28 January.
The city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank is now a ghost town.
Life has come to a standstill in the usually bustling city ever since 21 January, when Israel launched a large-scale military operation dubbed Iron Wall.
Since then, Israeli ground troops, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, bulldozers and drones have ravaged and besieged residential neighborhoods, the destruction resembling that in Gaza.
For more than a month, the relentless grinding of bulldozers tearing up the streets, the constant hum of Israeli drones and cracks of gunfire have disrupted the otherwise quiet, empty roads.
People inspect the rubble of a house where two Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid in Burqin village near Jenin, 23 January.
Israel has also expanded its operation to the surrounding areas of Tubas and Tulkarm.
Across these areas, Israeli forces have killed more than 60 people, including several children, since 21 January. Troops have injured scores of others and forcibly displaced some 40,000 Palestinians from refugee camps.
The displacement of residents in Jenin refugee camp began with the Palestinian Authority crackdown starting in early December that left people vulnerable and exhausted before the outset of Israel’s invasion.
Israeli soldiers walk along a road as families evacuate their homes in Jenin on 23 January.
The mass displacement from Jenin refugee camp evokes painful memories of the Nakba, during which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their lands around the time of Israel’s establishment in 1948.
During the Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – Zionist militias violently uprooted families from their homes and prevented their return.
Families living in Jenin refugee camp today originally hail from communities depopulated during the Nakba.
Many Palestinians living in Jenin, who have endured brutal Israeli military raids for decades, describe the current offensive as the worst assault yet – surpassing Israel’s notorious 2002 invasion of the refugee camp.
Among the victims of Israel’s current assault is 2-year-old Laila al-Khatib.
Ayman al-Khatib carries the body of his 2-year-old granddaughter, Laila al-Khatib, who was killed by Israeli forces, during her funeral procession in Jenin, 26 January.
Carrying the corpse of his slain granddaughter swaddled in a Palestinian flag, Ayman al-Khatib refused help from the crowds of mourners, insisting that “she is small.”
“This is the Israeli army’s achievement. Chasing women and children before killing them in their homes,” he told mourners during the girl’s funeral procession.
Laila and her family were sharing a meal at her home in the town of Muthallath al-Shuhada, south of Jenin, at the time of her fatal injury on 25 January.
Defense for Children International-Palestine, a human rights group, said Israeli gunfire suddenly “erupted without warning” and four bullets were fired through the family’s living room window, one of them striking Laila in the back of her head.
“Where is the protection of civilians? Where are their ethics … An innocent girl. An angel. A child. She isn’t even a threat to a bird,” Ayman added.
Walking beside Ayman on the way to the young girl’s burial, Bassem Asous, Laila’s maternal grandfather, told mourners that he demanded justice.
“Heavily armed and trained soldiers came to kill this child,” he said. “They need to be tried at the International Criminal Court. And pay the price. Because this is a disgraceful and vile act.”
Not far from them, a group of women gathered around a small plastic bag, holding a piece of Laila’s shattered head and waiting for one final glimpse of her body.
A man kisses a piece of Laila al-Khatib’s bloodstained clothes. An Israeli sniper killed the girl while she and her family were having dinner in their home in the town of Muthallath Al-Shuhada, south of Jenin, 26 January.
Israeli troops have effectively enforced a siege on Jenin’s public hospital since the beginning of the assault.
The Israeli military has positioned troops near the hospital and have bulldozed roads leading to the facility, damaging the pipelines that supply it with water. Troops have also surrounded another hospital in Jenin – Ibn Sina Specialized Hospital – as well as Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm, according to the UN.
Medical staff at Jenin’s public hospital told The Electronic Intifada that many patients have been evacuated to nearby facilities for treatment. But doctors continue to risk their lives to provide care for those still inside.
Dr. Abdullah Daher sits on a hospital bed at the public hospital in Jenin on 25 January. The doctor was treated at the facility for two gunshot wounds sustained in an Israeli sniper attack on the first day of the ongoing military assault.
One of their patients was Dr. Abdullah Daher, head of the pediatrics department at Jenin’s public hospital.
Daher was shot by an Israeli sniper while walking in the streets of Jenin on his way to work on the first day of Israel’s military assault.
“I pulled my phone out and lifted it in front of my chest when a bullet hit my thumb,” he told The Electronic Intifada. He believes that the soldier who fired the bullet intended to kill him “because he aimed to shoot me in the chest.”
Daher crawled behind a car for cover before he was shot again in the leg. Left to bleed for about 45 minutes, he eventually flagged down an ambulance crew that transported him to the hospital where he works.
What was meant to be a busy day filled with surgeries instead saw the doctor become the patient in need of urgent care.
Once his condition stabilized, healthcare workers gathered around Daher, expressing their relief that he had survived, unlike his colleague Dr. Abdullah Abu al-Teen, who was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers in front of the hospital in October 2022.
A Palestinian ambulance crew in Jenin is stopped and searched by the Israeli military on 22 January.
Israeli forces have also been attacking and deliberately obstructing medical teams, preventing them from reaching those in need.
Many people are afraid to approach the hospital, not only due to the heavy presence of Israeli forces but also because the Palestinian Authority seized a floor of the facility during their operation.
A few days into the operation, the UN human rights office stated that Palestinian Authority security forces were using the upper floors and roof of the hospital and using it as a base and had opened fire from within the facility.
Days into the Israeli offensive, one of the authors of this story witnessed about 20 individuals on the hospital’s top floor, most wearing Palestinian Authority security uniforms, with a few others in civilian clothing.
Several officers were asleep on beds or mattresses spread across the floor, while those awake appeared on edge, visibly uncomfortable at the unexpected presence of a journalist.
As per the author’s observations, the PA’s presence in the hospital was maintained for at least the first few weeks of Israel’s assault.
A grieving man rests his head on the body of a Palestinian killed during confrontations by Israeli forces during a funeral procession in Jenin, 3 February.
Many Palestinians describe Israel’s assault as a battle against nothing but empty homes.
Israeli forces have forcibly displaced nearly all of Jenin refugee camp, with more than 90 percent of its 20,000 residents forced to flee, according to the UN. Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, has instructed the military to “not allow residents to return.”
Many Palestinians fled the refugee camp soon after the offensive began.
Families carried their belongings, comforted frightened children and helped older relatives in wheelchairs navigate the destroyed roads while the buzz of Israeli drones filled the air.
Children gather around a fire inside Jenin refugee camp on 22 December 2024.
Near the entrance to the camp, a 41-year-old woman who preferred to remain anonymous told The Electronic Intifada she fled her home along with dozens of other people in the camp, several of whom were detained by Israeli forces.
Her voice trembled as she explained that she usually stays in her home during Israeli raids. But this time was different.
Throughout the night, she and her family heard the sound of bombings and ambiguous announcements from Israeli drones over loudspeakers.
“Sometimes [the drones] told us to stay in our houses, other times they told us to leave. We didn’t know what to do. We knew [Israeli troops] had occupied houses nearby, but had no idea what was happening outside,” she said.
There was no electricity or water “and only the food that was already in the house,” she added.
Saleh Mahmoud – not his real name – told The Electronic Intifada on 29 January that several members of his family had been forcibly displaced for more than 60 days due to both the Israeli and the Palestinian Authority operations in the camp.
He said witnessing the destruction of the refugee camp has taken a heavy emotional toll. He doesn’t know if his home is still standing.
“Jenin camp is everything to me. I built my house there; everything I have is there,” Mahmoud said.
Mahmoud and his family are now taking refuge at a charity for the blind in Jenin. The charity’s offices have been converted into a shelter that is currently housing more than 50 displaced individuals.
“Being away for so long is incredibly difficult,” he added.
Palestinian security forces take positions in the Jenin refugee camp on 21 December 2024.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, attributes the rise in forced displacement in the West Bank to Israel’s “increasingly dangerous and coercive” tactics used by the Israeli military. The agency describes these methods as having “become commonplace” and “a spillover of the war in Gaza.”
Israel is also increasingly attacking Palestinians in the West Bank from the sky as it so infamously does in Gaza.
In June 2023, Israel launched airstrikes in the camp – the first such strikes in the West Bank in around two decades.
Israel had already launched more than 38 airstrikes in the West Bank in the first five weeks of 2025, according to UNRWA.
A Palestinian fighter in Jenin refugee camp carries a gun and an explosive device on 22 December 2024.
Israel says its attacks are aimed at routing armed Palestinian groups, including the Jenin Brigades, whose members are mainly young men who grew up in the overcrowded refugee camp. These young men have witnessed countless Israeli raids and the killing, arrest and humiliation of their loved ones.
The invasion by Palestinian Authority security forces was also ostensibly aimed at cracking down on armed groups resisting the occupation.
While the PA claims its operation was aimed at restoring order, resistance groups see their actions as complicit with Israel.
“We are not terrorists, we are simply defending ourselves. We are used to confronting soldiers, not the Palestinian Authority – our own people, sharing our blood and faith,” a member of the Jenin Brigades told The Electronic Intifada on condition of anonymity.
Many Palestinians believe that as long as children continue to grow up as refugees on their own land, facing escalating Israeli violence, resistance against occupation will persist.
Text by Leila Warah and reportage and photography by Wahaj Bani Moufleh.
Leila Warah is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Palestine.
Wahaj Bani Moufleh is a photographer from the Palestinian town of Beita in the West Bank and a member of the Activestills collective.
