At least 11 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank on Sunday, including seven who were killed in a single Israeli airstrike on Jenin. ‘They’re dealing with us like Gaza, attacking civilians,’ a fighter with the Qabatiya Brigade tells Mondoweiss.
Mondoweiss
At least 11 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, including seven who were killed in a single Israeli airstrike on the northern city of Jenin.
The Israeli army stormed Jenin city shortly after early Sunday morning at around 1:40 a.m. from the southern end of the city, targeting the Jabriyaat area of the city, a neighborhood located just on the outskirts of the Jenin refugee camp.
Fierce confrontations began immediately, with local armed resistance groups firing back at Israeli troops invading the city. Soon after Israeli forces reached the Jabriyaat area, an IED exploded, targeting an Israeli military vehicle. According to the Israeli military, one border police officer was killed, and three others were injured.
Shortly after, the military deployed a helicopter to assist in the extraction of the injured soldiers. During the evacuation, the helicopter shelled the area, while Israeli drones were also deployed, flying over the city and the camp throughout the raid. The Israeli military also brought in a bulldozer to extract an army jeep that was badly damaged in the explosion.
Fierce resistance from local fighters persisted for several hours until the army began pulling out of Jenin around 4:30 a.m., close to three hours after the invasion began.
Throughout this time, there were no casualties reported amongst the Palestinian resistance groups, who later claimed responsibility for the IED explosion. As the army pulled out of the city, residents of the camp and surrounding areas remained on edge, expecting an airstrike from Israeli forces in retaliation for the IED explosion.
Though relatively uncommon in the West Bank, the Israeli military began using airstrikes more frequently on Palestinian areas like Jenin, with increasing frequency since last year.
Just as the army was completing its retreat from the city, residents’ fears were confirmed when an Israeli airstrike hit Jenin.
But the airstrike did not target the site of intense clashes, Jabriyaat, or the heart of resistance operations in Jenin camp, as many suspected.
Instead. the strike took place around 5 kilometers (3 miles) away, near a busy junction that leads from Jenin city to the surrounding villages of Burqin, Qabatiya, and Muthalath al-Shuhada.
The strike targeted a group of young men who were gathering around a fire in a commercial area filled with coffee shops, restaurants, and one of the largest fruit and vegetable markets in the West Bank.
The Israeli military claimed the airstrike targeted ‘a group of Palestinian gunmen who were hurling explosives at troops.’ Locals described the strike as an act of ‘revenge’ from the army after suffering losses from the Palestinian resistance groups, particularly because the strike took place far away from the site of the IED explosion and the fiercest confrontations.
‘Israel is doing all of this [killing civilians] because they’re having such trouble [with the resistance]. What happened to them in the Jenin refugee camp put a lot of pressure on them, so they took it out on the civilians,’ a masked fighter from the ‘Qabatiya Brigade,’ an armed group based out of the Qabatiya village on the outskirts of Jenin, told Mondoweiss.
‘They’re dealing with us like Gaza, attacking civilians,’ the fighter said, referring to the Israeli army’s targeting of the seven young men in the airstrike. ‘Nothing happened to the men of the Brigade [the resistance fighters], so as the army withdrew, it took out its rage on civilians.’
‘Body parts everywhere’
After hearing a large explosion caused by the airstrike, residents of Jenin and medics rushed to the area. Upon arriving at the site, eyewitnesses described horrific scenes of bodies and blood scattered across the ground.
‘There were body parts everywhere, arms, blood, one guy’s head was cut off,’ a man told Mondoweiss. ‘Six of them were dead on site, a seventh young man was barely alive and moving a little bit.’
Khaled al-Ahmad, a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent, told Mondoweiss that his crew was the first to arrive when they saw young men strewn across the ground. He described it as a ‘massacre,’ with ‘limbs and blood everywhere.’
‘We were the first ambulance to arrive on site. We witnessed several young men strewn across the ground. We checked them and knew that they were dead. It was apparent that there was an explosion that led to the death of six young men,’ al-Ahmad said.
The bodies of the men were rushed to the Jenin government hospital, where six of them were pronounced dead. A seventh young man was in critical condition and succumbed to his wounds shortly after.
Of the seven martyrs, four were brothers from the same family.
Medical sources identified the seven martyrs as brothers Hazza’ Darwish, 27, Rami Darwish, 22, Ahmed Darwish, 24, and Alaa Darwish, 29, and Razqallah Nabil Sleiman, 18, Mohammad Yasser As’ous and Wadee Yaser ‘As’ous. Mohammad and Wadee Asous were also brothers.
The seven young men were from the village of Muthalath al-Shuhada, south of Jenin city.
At the hospital, horrifying scenes unfolded as families arrived to identify their dead sons, a task made extremely difficult due to the brutal nature of their wounds.
In one incident, a father wandered around the hospital with a bag containing the severed head of his son, which he retrieved from medics.
The martyrs were laid to rest in a funeral on Sunday afternoon.
‘Ahmad was injured two years ago. Rami was already arrested a month ago in Jenin when they [Israel] launched an airstrike on the young men, and Hazza was about to undergo kidney dialysis at the hospital. Rami and I were on an outing in the hills yesterday. Alaa made some food and said, ‘mother come let’s have dinner together,’ and we ate with each other. Ahmad had prepared a nargileh and I went and sat with him for a while.
Hazza this morning took some money from me because he was on his way for a kidney dialysis session at the hospital. I saw them all before they left the house. Every time the [Israeli] army invades, they leave the house. Ahmad has training as an EMT, and when they bombed the young men in Jenin earlier, Ahmad was one of the first responders, he and Rami. Every time the army came in, they [my sons] went out the door. They wanted to work and save up so they could build a home, but they were unable to do all this.’
‘Their brother was going to get married, and now they won’t be able to…They were all at the Shuhada square when the airstrike killed them. Another of my sons who works at the Qabatiya vegetable market called me and told me ‘there’s a bombing at Shuhada square, call my brothers.’ I called each of them, and there wasn’t an answer. My son Hammoudeh was asleep, so I took his phone and opened it on Telegram, and I saw Alaa. I told Hammoudeh ‘wake up! your brothers!’ He said ‘what’s wrong? Where are they?’…I went running to Shuhada square. I knew it was them when I arrived at the hospital. They always spent their time together. Even when the army invaded, they always went together. They never left each other alone.’
The Israeli airstrike on Jenin is the latest in a months-long escalation by the Israeli military, targeting resistance groups in the area. Since last year, Israeli forces have become increasingly more aggressive in its attacks on Jenin, routinely using air forces and ‘suicide drones,’ a significant escalation from the typical use of ground troops in the West Bank.
Four Palestinians, including 4-year-old girl, killed in separate instances
Four other Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in Jenin on Sunday.
In the Ramallah area village of Abwein, in the central West Bank, a young man identified as Ahmed Mahmoud Muhareb, 28, was shot by Israeli forces in the abdomen during a military raid on the town.
According to WAFA news agency, a large number of Israeli forces stormed the town Sunday morning, sparking confrontations with local residents, during which Israeli forces fired tear gas and live ammunition. Three civilians were shot with live ammunition, including Muhareb, who later succumbed to his wounds.
In a separate incident later Sunday evening, Israeli forces opened fire at two vehicles at the Beit Iksa military checkpoint. The village of Beit Iksa lies northwest of Jerusalem, within the boundaries of the occupied West Bank. It is, however, completely surrounded by the Israeli separation wall, cutting it off from both the West Bank and Jerusalem. In order to enter and exit the village, residents must pass through a permanent Israeli military checkpoint.
According to WAFA, Israeli forces fired shots towards a vehicle that was passing through the checkpoint. According to the Israeli military, the vehicle deliberately rammed border police officers, lightly injuring one. The man who was driving the vehicle, along with his wife, were both killed by Israeli fire. The two, who were from the nearby town of Biddu, were identified as Mohammed Mzayyid Abu Eid and his wife Dukhaba, Haaretz reported.
Haaretz added that the Abu Eid family denied that it was a car-ramming, saying ‘all the signs indicate that it was an accident or a loss of control of the vehicle, and the fact that it was a couple who were in the car together only strengthens the argument that it was an accident.’
Israeli forces at the checkpoint also fired at another vehicle that was carrying a Palestinian family, who were uninvolved in the alleged car ramming. The soldiers shot four-year-old Ruqaya Jahaleen, who was riding in the car with her family on their way back home to Beit Iksa.
The young girl was shot by Israeli forces in the upper body and was critically wounded, before succumbing to her injuries a short while later.
According to WAFA, immediately after the incident, Israeli forces sealed off the checkpoint, ‘preventing the entry or exit of residents into and out of the village. Moreover, they obstructed Palestinian ambulance vehicles from transferring the victims to hospital.’
The killing of the 11 Palestinians in the West Bank on Sunday comes amid an increase in Israeli military and settler attacks in the occupied territory. While the Israeli military had killed more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank in the first 10 months of 2023, the army began killing Palestinians in the West Bank with even more frequency and little scrutiny since October 7.
According to Al Jazeera, at least 5,600 people have been arrested, more than 3,000 injured, and around 332 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank since October 7.