West Bank: Palestinians recount Jenin refugee camp ordeal

Since early Tuesday morning, Ahmad, a young Palestinian, had ferried people who fled the Jenin refugee camp in his car to relatives' homes elsewhere in the city.

"I just want to help. I also live in the camp, and I went to my brother's nearby. Since the morning I picked up four or five families," the young Palestinian, who didn't want to reveal his full name, told DW.

Black plumes of smoke could be seen drifting over the city of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank, and shots could be heard from inside the refugee camp.

Ahmad, who is an English teacher, was waiting in his car for more passengers at a municipal center where aid supplies were given out. "I take them wherever they need or want to go. Not everyone in the camp has a car." 

While he has experienced raids on the camp by the Israeli army several times before, this one was different, he said: "It's nothing new that they come here, but this time, it felt like a war. It it is very harsh what is going on. The world should see what is going on inside the camp."

The large-scale operation by the Israeli military started shortly after midnight on Monday with drone strikes and ground forces entering the densely populated refugee camp. Armored bulldozers were seen operating in the narrow alleys; snipers were stationed on roof tops. 

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 12 people were killed, and more than 120 injured, among them at least 20 critically. The Israeli army claims that most of the people killed were militants. One of its soldiers was also killed on Tuesday night.

Due to the dangerous situation, journalists had a hard time covering the events inside the camp. A crew of Al Araby, a TV network based in Qatar, said they came under fire while reporting live from the area.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the aim of the operation was to target the "terrorist infrastructure" of Palestinian militants operating in the camp and thereby removing a "safe haven" for them. For more than a year, the Israeli military had intensified its raids particularly in the north of the occupied West Bank after a series of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank. In recent weeks, there had been growing pressure within Israel's ultranationalist government to launch an operation in response to one of the deadliest years in the conflict since 2005. 

Jenin refugee camp: Residents flee their homes

On Tuesday night, thousands of residents reportedly fled the violence in the camp and sought shelter in other parts of the city.

Exhausted after leaving her home, Saeda Ahmad sat on a bench, with two bags of powdered milk in her hands. Here at the Jenin Municipal Korean Center, volunteers were busy distributing food, water, and other items, donated among others by the municipality, shops and private businesses and distributed by the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA. "We just left without anything, just the clothes we wore last night," she told DW.

Saeda and her family decided to leave as the shelling came closer.

"The electricity went off, and my daughter has asthma, and I didn't manage to operate the small machine for her. There was smoke, teargas. There was total chaos, people didn't know where to go, shouting everywhere. I don't know how to describe it. It was frightening." 

The family is now staying with relatives in the city of Jenin, hoping that they can soon go back home. "Nobody cares about us, not the Arab countries, nobody," she said.

The Jenin camp was set up in the 1950s to accommodate Palestinian refugees who were displaced or fled their homes during and after the Israeli-Arab War in 1948. Since 1995, the area has been under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but the PA has little presence in the camp and only limited security control with its own police and security forces.

Another resident who had left her home, Mariam Jabareen, also picked up some items at the municipal center. "No one expected this raid to take place, it was worse than the one in 2002," Jabareen told DW, referring to a large-scale operation in Jenin in 2002 during the second intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian territories). "Nothing will ever be ok here," says Jabareen. "The next generation will not forget this."

Car attack in Tel Aviv 

While the Israeli military continued their operation throughout Tuesday, there was another attack by a young Palestinian in Tel Aviv who drove into a group of Israelis injuring seven of them. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited an army base near Jenin on Tuesday where he was briefed about the offensive, said "we will not allow Jenin to go back to being a city of refuge for terrorism. We will eradicate terrorism wherever we see it and we will strike at it."

At the edge of the Jenin refugee camp, black smoke continued to rise from burning garbage containers and rubber tires on the roads. Ambulances lined up at the corner of an eerily empty street leading into the camp, waiting for the next call.

Paramedic Salah Ez El Deen Zabadna, who works for the Palestinian Red Crescent, stepped out of the ambulance van for a short break. His team had just delivered some food to a hotel, where residents who had fled the camp the night before were staying.

"Right now, we don't work in shifts, we simply work round the clock, we do what we can," Zabadna told DW.

Dealing with these dangerous situations is nothing new for Zabadna's team. "For us it is almost routine. We are here to save lives. But again because of the army operating there, we cannot go in at any time we want, we can't rush, we can't drive fast, we can't move every time we need to."

While he was talking intense shooting erupted once more from around the corner. A young Palestinian driver shouted at some people walking down the shuttered street: "Don't go this way, be careful, there are soldiers nearby." Sirens went off as an ambulance sped away to respond to the next call. 

Back at the municipal center, 15-year-old Laith collected some supplies. He lives on the edge of the camp, while many of his relatives and friends live inside.

"I was very afraid last night. I am feeling sad about what is happening. I miss my friends, I don't know what has happened to them," he said.

The military operation has put any summer vacation plans on hold. Right now, he is just trying to help and then get back home safely.

"I'd like to see the [Israeli] occupation end, so that I can see peace in my lifetime," Laith said. "But I don't know what is going to happen. It's not in our hands, it's only in the hands of God."

Edited by: Rob Mudge