The Municipality Director of the occupied West Bank’s Jenin, Mamdouh Assaf, said on 17 March that the city has been almost completely destroyed by the Israeli siege and assault, which has been ongoing for nearly two months.
“Jenin has been under full occupation for 56 days, and 3,200 homes have been evacuated,” Assaf said, adding that “one-hundred percent of the Jenin Refugee Camp has been leveled, and 85 percent of the streets in Jenin have been destroyed.”
“Life is completely disrupted in Jenin, and we have around 8,000 commercial establishments completely closed. Entire neighborhoods surrounding Jenin Camp have had their residents displaced,” the municipality director went on to say.
The Israeli army launched a widescale operation against the city of Jenin on 21 January, invading and besieging its refugee camp and beginning a systematic campaign of destruction and displacement.
The operation quickly expanded to include other cities in the occupied West Bank – namely Tulkarem, which has been under attack for 50 days. The city’s two main camps – Nour Shams Refugee Camp and Tulkarem Refugee Camp – have bore the brunt of the attack.
Over 43,000 people have been displaced in both Jenin and Tulkarem. At least 47 have been killed, and dozens of others injured.
Israeli forces have destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings in both cities with explosives and bulldozers. Several areas of the Jenin and Tulkarem camps have been taken over and transformed into military posts.
In late February, Israeli tanks entered Jenin Refugee Camp for the first time since the Second Intifada in 2002.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said last month that the Israeli army is planning to remain deployed in the occupied West Bank’s refugee camps for “the next year.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority (PA) security services continue to crack down on the resistance in both Tulkarem and Jenin in coordination with the Israeli army.