West Bank residents losing hope 100 days into military assault

Arab News

02-05-2025

JENIN: On a torn-up road near the refugee camp where she once lived, Saja Bawaqneh said she struggled to find hope 100 days after an Israeli offensive in the occupied West Bank forced her to flee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the north of the territory since Israel began a major 'anti-terrorist operation' dubbed 'Iron Wall' on Jan. 21.
Bawaqneh said life was challenging and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive, along with Tulkarm and Nur Shams.
'We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,' she said.
'Nothing is clear in Jenin camp even after 100 days — we still don't know whether we will return to our homes, or whether those homes have been damaged or destroyed.'
Bawaqneh said residents were banned from entering the camp and that 'no one knows ... what happened inside.'
Israel's military in late February deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time in the West Bank since the end of the second intifada.
In early March, it said it had expanded its offensive to more city areas.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above Jenin's streets blocked with barriers made of churned-up earth.
Wastewater pooled in the road outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Farha Abu Al-Hija, a member of the Popular Committee for Services in Jenin camp, said families living in the vicinity of the camp were being removed by Israeli forces daily.
'A hundred days have passed like a hundred years for the displaced people of Jenin camp,' she said.
'Their situation is dire, the conditions are harsh, and they are enduring pain unlike anything they have ever known.'
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders in March denounced the 'extremely precarious' situation of Palestinians displaced by the military assault, saying they were going 'without proper shelter, essential services, and access to health care.'
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps 'has not been seen in decades' in the West Bank.
The UN says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the offensive would last several months and ordered troops to stop residents from returning.
Israeli forces put up barriers at several entrances of the Jenin camp in late April, AFP footage showed.
The Israeli offensive began two days after a truce came into effect in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and Gaza's Hamas rulers.
Two months later, that truce collapsed and Israel resumed its offensive in Gaza, a Palestinian territory separate from the West Bank.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 925 Palestinians in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry.