JENIN: Watching her granddaughter sleep in cramped quarters for displaced Palestinians, Sanaa Shraim hopes for a better life for the baby, born into a weeks-long Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces searching for suspected militants have long carried out limited incursions into Jenin refugee camp, where Shraim and about 24,000 other Palestinians normally live.
But with no end in sight to the ongoing military operation across the northern West Bank, “I worry about what will happen, when the children grow up in this reality of constant raids,” said Shraim.
She had already lost her militant son Yusef in a previous Israeli raid, in 2023. More recently, forced to flee the escalating Israeli assault since late January, Shraim has watched her daughter give birth in displacement.
“There have been so many repeated raids, and they won’t stop,” said the stern-faced grandmother, speaking to AFP in a crowded room at a community center in Jenin city where the family have been sheltering for the past month.
The sweeping military operation was launched around the time a ceasefire took hold in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, a separate Palestinian territory.
Israel has since announced that its troops would remain in Jenin and neighboring camps for up to a year.
’Nothing left’ back home
Shraim and her family are among about 80 displaced residents of Jenin camp sharing the building in the city.
Thaer Mansoura, confined to a wheelchair due to osteoporosis, said he had to be rescued in a cart after army bulldozers tore through the streets around his home.
“We endured it as much as we could, but with so many children — my brothers’ kids, our neighbors’ children, my cousins’ children — we had no choice but to leave,” he told AFP.
Mansoura said his family had remained home for three days as electricity and then phone lines were cut, engulfed by the sound of bombs, gunfire and helicopters, as well as army drone broadcasting calls for residents to “evacuate your homes.”
Now, in the relative safety of the community shelter, he feels “stuck here — there’s no place to return to, nothing left.”
Back in the camp, just five kilometers (three miles) away, the rubble-strewn streets are devoid of people as Israeli soldiers patrol the perimeter on foot or in armored jeeps and personnel carriers.
An AFP correspondent walls riddled with bullet holes, narrow streets littered with concrete slabs and facades torn by army bulldozers, and twisted metal storefronts barely hanging from their hinges.
Awnings blackened by fire stand as a reminder of life in the camp that came to a standstill a little over a month ago, when the Israeli operation began.
In the city center, life has returned despite military presence, with some shops cautiously reopening — a sign of pressing economic concerns for many residents.
“Normally, after an operation, everything shuts down. But this time it is different,” said the manager of one apparel shop who declined to be named.
’The same occupation’
The ongoing Israeli raid is unusual not only in its duration, but also in the rare deployment of tanks to the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Nathmi Turkman, 53, once jailed by Israel, carries a constant reminder of the last time Jenin saw such relentless military activity during the second Palestinian intifada, or “uprising” — a bullet from 2022 still in his flesh.
While Israel maintains that its offensive targets militant groups long active in the northern West Bank, Turkman said that “their bullets don’t differentiate between civilians and fighters.”
Before leaving the camp, he grabbed just one item from his home, a small Eiffel Tower figurine which he chose for its sentimental value.
Now at the community center in Jenin city, Turkman said that for people who did not witness the events of the second intifada, the current Israeli operation “was shocking.”
“But for us, we lived through 2002 with tanks and warplanes,” he said.
“There’s no difference between 2002 and 2024 — it’s all the same occupation.”
In this reality, Shraim fears that her grandchildren will grow up knowing only war and displacement.
On edge, she was startled when the stroller carrying her granddaughter tipped over in a park near the shelter, reacting as though the infant was in mortal danger before realizing she was fine.
“The fear is inside me, and I can’t shake it,” said the grandmother.
Displaced Palestinians fear Israel’s West Bank raids ‘won’t stop’
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Displaced Palestinians fear Israel’s West Bank raids ‘won’t stop’
- The sweeping military operation was launched around the time a ceasefire took hold in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip,
