Embryo- On the main street connecting Al-Shifa Private Hospital and Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank, Umm Mujahid Abu Jalda was walking with obvious fear, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and her three granddaughters, after she was able to leave the camp to search for milk for her granddaughters and bread for the rest of the family who remained in her home in Al-Damj Lane.
Umm Mujahid says that she risked herself and her granddaughters, but she has no other choice, as there is no milk in the house for the girl, who is only two months old, and no bread and no food in the refrigerator that serves more than 7 people.
She added, “The road was not easy at all. I passed through two streets and the occupation army stopped me and prevented me from crossing and forced me to return. I had to take a third, longer road. I also found a patrol and they asked me about my destination before they allowed me to pass.”
“The most difficult since the 2002 invasion”
The grandmother talks about what happened to them during the three days of the siege imposed by the occupation forces on the camp since last Monday night. She says, “They entered our house and destroyed everything in it. They destroyed the furniture, tore up a picture of my martyr son, and arrested my son Mujahid. They searched the entire family’s homes, arrested the young men among them, and then left.”
The people describe the situation in the camp as more difficult than what they experienced during the 2002 invasion. There are no clear landmarks in the camp today, and all the alleys are destroyed. The army is conducting intensive house searches, moving from one house to another and from one neighborhood to another, and preventing people from leaving. Homes for any reason.
Although Umm Mujahid was able to reach Jenin city center, the shops were completely closed, and the streets were empty except for journalists and some ambulances stationed in places close to the entrances to the camp in an attempt to provide first aid to the wounded, especially after the occupation forces prevented them from entering the camp to transport them. Injuries.
She confirms that “large numbers of families are in the camp and cannot move. They are trapped in their homes. The situation is catastrophic there. There is no food or first aid. Fear grips people, especially children. We need many basic supplies that are beginning to run out of homes.”
In her house in the Al-Hawashin neighborhood, one of the neighborhoods in the camp that the Israeli occupation focuses on most during every incursion, Umm Mahdi Al-Damj hears from time to time the sounds of explosions near the house, and the screams of occupation soldiers in the street.
She says, “Last night was true horror. We could not sleep at all. The sounds of explosions were getting louder every hour, and the sounds of clashes were very close, and even the sound of bombing in the eastern neighborhood of the city was reaching us clearly and strongly.”
Gaza scenario
Umm Mahdi added, “My three-year-old daughter woke up to the sound of the explosion and was feeling afraid. All day long she asked me: Did the army withdraw from the camp? Will their presence continue for a longer time? We try to explain what is happening to the children, but they are too young to understand all this and to live all this horror.”
The camp residents live hours of constant anxiety and fear as the occupation soldiers continue to search homes, destroy them with Israeli military bulldozers, and arrest young men. Appeals began to come out from among the residents for the necessity of bringing food and bread into the camp, which has been under complete siege for more than 50 hours.
Umm Mahdi asserts, “Frankly, there must be coordination with any party due to the need to allow us to go out and provide our basic needs, especially food. The children are hungry and there is no bread in our house or in the neighboring houses. Is the occupation army seeking to repeat the Gaza scenario in the camp?” she wonders.
The occupation army deploys snipers on the rooftops of houses in the camp and in the buildings adjacent to and overlooking it, while bulldozers continue to destroy roads and streets inside it and on the roads leading to it in the city of Jenin.
Until now, no ambulance or civil defense teams have been allowed to enter the camp, while news is arriving from inside that the number of detainees, men and young men, has increased significantly, as soldiers arrest all men in the homes they enter.
Umm Mahdi explains, “They entered my husband’s brother’s house, completely searched it, destroyed its contents, then arrested his four children. We still do not know any news about them. We are ordinary citizens, we are tired of this fear and destruction, and our children feel terrified by all the sounds they hear.”
Starvation policy
The camp residents did not receive any communications with any international body to provide basic needs and medicines. Residents confirm that the occupation aims to siege the camp to suppress and eliminate resistance there. The residents fear that the siege will continue for a long time, which means starving people and increasing diseases.
Umm Mahdi continues, “My husband’s brother is sick and needs permanent treatment, and we cannot provide it for him in any way. We are 6 people in the house. So far, it has not been our turn to search, but they searched all the houses next to us.”
She added, “My neighbors told me that the occupation soldiers destroyed the flour, food, and oil in their house. They are trying to destroy everything and reach the stage of starving people in the camp. Contact is supposed to be made with the Palestinian liaison to provide food, treatment, and infant formula.”
Doctors Without Borders published a statement on its website on the “X” platform in which it said that the people in Jenin camp are at risk of death due to their inability to reach hospitals to receive treatment. It said that one of its cars was exposed to fire from the occupation forces while trying to enter the camp.
The day before yesterday, Tuesday, the people were surprised by the sounds of Hebrew songs playing over the loudspeakers of one of the camp’s mosques. People responded by sounding sirens, playing speeches by Abu Ubaida, the official spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades in the Gaza Strip, and playing patriotic songs in all the mosques in the city of Jenin.
A video clip appeared to have been posted by one of the occupation soldiers, showing the soldiers desecrating a mosque and singing through his headphones.
The Israeli occupation forces stormed the camp and city of Jenin, at dawn last Monday, and imposed a complete siege on it, while reconnaissance aircraft bombed two sites in the old town in the eastern city of Jenin, and 11 martyrs have been martyred so far.