Consider This from NPR - Palestinians Deal with Loss and Destruction Following Israeli Attack on Jenin

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

On Wednesday Israel said it concluded a two-day military operation in the Jenin refugee camp meant to root out armed militants. The raid on the camp in the occupied West Bank - complete with airstrikes – was the most intense military operation Israel has carried out in more than 15 years. At least 12 Palestinians were killed and scores wounded. One Israeli soldier was killed.Israel claimed the attack was one that targeted militants and minimized harm to non-combatants. NPR's Daniel Estrin visited Jenin as the operation was winding down and said Palestinians had a different story to tell.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. For over a year, Israel has launched regular raids into the occupied West Bank, targeting armed groups of Palestinians. This week's attack was different. Tonight, the Middle East on edge. Israeli forces carrying out their largest military occupation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in more than 20 years. Lethal airstrikes and hundreds of troops on the ground. Palestinian officials say the two-day

attack on the Jenin refugee camp has left at least 12 Palestinians dead and 100 injured. Israel claims at least 10 of the killed were militants. One Israeli soldier was killed too. The director at the Jenin government hospital says medical teams have been working around the clock treating the wounded. You see? You can hear, I think, yes? That was Noras, a nurse in the hospital who says he heard repeated sounds of gunfire over the past two days as the fighting took place nearby. On Wednesday, Israel said its military operation was complete. And to hear Israel tell it, the raid was targeted, focused on militants, not civilians. I think we're doing the best we can to minimize the harm of noncombatants

and minimize the population to suffer from the situation that terror was embedded in that camp. That was Chief Army Spokesman Daniel Hagari of the Israel Defense Forces in an interview with NPR from Tuesday evening as the incursion was wrapping up. Israel has framed the attack on the Jenin refugee camp as a pinpointed operation to remove a threat to Israelis. But the residents of Jenin that NPR spoke to have a different view. Coming up, we'll hear from Palestinians who have lived through the raid to understand what it looked like through their eyes. From NPR, it's Consider This. I'm Scott Detrow. It's Wednesday, July 5th.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. This message comes from Pushkin. In Revenge of the Tipping Point, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points and the dark side of contagious phenomena.

Available wherever books are sold and wherever you get your audiobooks. It's Consider This from NPR. On Wednesday, Israel said it concluded a two-day military operation in the Jenin refugee camp meant to root out armed militants. The raid on the camp in the occupied West Bank, complete with airstrikes, was the most intense military operation Israel has carried out in more than 15 years. Israel claimed the attack was one that targeted militants and minimized harm to non-combatants. NPR's Daniel Estrin visited Janine as the operation was winding down and said Palestinians had a different story to tell. My interpreter and I arrive in the center of the Janine refugee camp. This whole road has just been completely dug up

by an Israeli bulldozer. All the asphalt is completely torn up. That road and then this road too. Israel said it destroyed over a mile and a half of roads because they were booby-trapped with tripwire and hidden bombs, which are new tactics of an emboldened Palestinian militant force here. But the damage left thousands without water and electricity. We meet a man who watched this from his home.

Ma'an Zakarna, a 39-year-old owner of a fitness gym and father of three young girls. We were watching from the windows because my car was there, my equipment was there, and they were bulldozing this, they were destroying this. He thinks it was the bombs planted by militants on the road that went off and broke his window when the bulldozers tore up the road. And I'm just looking at your kitchen counter and you have some protein powder next to shattered glass. He said it was too dangerous to use the kitchen, but he crawled in once to get some cornflakes for his daughters.

One other time, he stuck his hand out the living room window to grab a solar-powered light from his balcony. Remember, the electricity was cut and it was dark at night. And he says a bullet came through the window from Israeli troops on a roof across the street. His wife and kids are actually U.S. citizens. He's keeping them away until power and water come back on. But now, after the incursion, he wants to move them all to the U.S.

Outside in his yard, he shows me rubble that's buried exercise equipment he bought for his gym. This is a dumbbell, and this is a chair for dumbbell. Zakarna is a personal trainer. The best personal trainer in the Middle East, I am. Really? Yes, fitness first. And he teaches sports injury courses at the Arab American University in Jenin, which means he knows many young men the same age as those who are drawn to militant groups here.

I try to persuade them to live their life, to concentrate on their studies, to be with their families, and to distance themselves from militancy. However, they look at me, and I could see the laugh on their face. I become a clown. Young people we meet here say they see little other choice.

They can't find jobs. Israel sees them as too much of a security risk to let them enter for jobs. And they've grown up with Israeli soldiers shooting and arresting people they know. I want to have a normal life, but I'm sandwiched between the resistance fighters and the Israeli army. We follow men and women walking down the rubbled roads to gather outside a morgue for funeral processions for the militants. Hours earlier, there were Israeli troops here, and already dozens of young Palestinian men are back on the street

casually walking with their M16 rifles. There they go, the men carrying a body on their shoulders. A young 20-year-old man in the crowd tells us the body being carried was a militant. A woman standing in the crowd says her cousin was also killed in the incursion. Known for pipe bombs, she says. And every young person we meet in the crowd, when we ask what is the future here in Jenin, responds the same way, including this young masked uniformed gunman. There's no future. In Jenin, there's no future. We meet one woman,

Rifa Talakma, who's just returned to her home an hour before. We sit in the dark. Electricity is still cut. The food in the fridge is spoiled. She says the military called on people to leave their homes, and so they did. An Israeli army spokesman disputes soldiers made people leave. She says men in her family were arrested and released after four hours. I salute the resistance. However, my family has no resistance fighters. My family is a family of farmers. Her seven-year-old grandson, Aboud, can't stop talking about injured people he saw

and shots he heard. I think a lot of people around the world look at this and say how can it be that Palestinians and Israelis are still locked in a conflict 75 years, 100 years, and the situation only seems to be getting worse? It's because they are an occupation. It's because they don't own one inch of land here.

It's because they want everything we have. And the violence is getting stronger and the Palestinian fighters in Jenin are getting more experienced. I only pray that they will get stronger. I and everybody around me, we sacrifice our lives for the resistance. Daniel, it sounds like people there are still stunned, things are still raw. I guess I'm wondering why this all happened. What do the Israelis say this offensive accomplished? Israel says it's dealt a big blow to a major hub for Palestinian militants, militants who have gone out and carried out many attacks on Israelis

in Israel and in the occupied West Bank this past year. So Israel just in the last two days has confiscated weapons, destroyed explosives factories. Israel says militants now know that they are not immune and that Israel has set a precedent. It's given itself freedom of operation to return to Jenin, which just means that we could see this happen again and again. And now in Israel, there's a far right coalition running the country that's been calling to use even more and more military force in these areas. So Palestinian militants may be set back today, but they do remain emboldened. And for Palestinian civilians, all of this means that the conditions that they are facing will go on.

They will be living between militants and Israeli soldiers with their periodic incursions into their city and a military occupation that's lasted for more than half a century and just more hopelessness like the kind that we heard today. That was NPR's Daniel Estrin telling us about his reporting from the Janine refugee camp. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Tetreault. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from the

Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.