The Gazafication of Jenin will not succeed

Last month, arsenic the Israeli service started pulling retired of Gaza nether the ceasefire agreement, it announced an “operation” successful the occupied West Bank metropolis of Jenin and its exile camp. For 3 weeks now, it has been terrorising the Palestinian radical there, utilizing combatant jets, helicopters, tanks, drones, and bulldozers to termination and destroy.

Emboldened by the world’s indifference, the Israeli authorities is intelligibly attempting to replicate Gaza successful the West Bank. But the Gazafication of Jenin and different exile camps successful the West Bank is bound to fail, conscionable arsenic akin brutal strategies person failed successful the past.

There is simply a crushed wherefore Israel picked Jenin for the commencement of its renewed bloody battle connected the West Bank. The camp, which was established successful the aftermath of the Nakba to location 8,000 Palestinians violently expelled from their homes by Zionist forces, has been an incubator of absorption for decades.

During the archetypal Intifada, it became 1 of the nuclei of Palestinian organising and resistance. The younker who had known thing but concern became its voice, its fist, its heart.

During the 2nd Intifada, Jenin erstwhile again served arsenic a hub of the resistance. In April 2002, the Israeli service invaded the city, murdering 52 Palestinians, destroying hundreds of homes, and displacing much than a 4th of the population.

Israel declared triumph then, claiming to person crushed “terror”. Yet, from the ruins of Jenin, a caller procreation rose, carrying connected the unshakeable volition to resist.

In the 2020s, equipped absorption enactment intensified successful Jenin and different exile camps successful the West Bank. This culminated successful different brutal Israeli assault connected the metropolis successful July 2023, conscionable months earlier the outbreak of the genocide successful Gaza. The cognition progressive the deployment of combatant jets, equipped drones, tanks, bulldozers, and thousands of troops. The Israeli service killed astatine slightest 10 Palestinians, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and displaced thousands. And yet, absorption re-emerged erstwhile again and responded to calls from Gaza for mobilisation.

Jenin has go a hub of absorption for a reason. Refugee camps are not simply places wherever the displaced past – they are the beating hearts of Palestinian consciousness. These are places wherever the wounds and trauma of the Nakba are passed from procreation to generation, wherever sons and daughters inherit their parents and grandparents’ tendency to instrumentality home.

Children turn up seeing their neighbourhoods raided, friends detained oregon murdered, conscionable similar 10-year-old Saddam Rajab from Tulkarem who was changeable successful the abdomen by an Israeli worker connected January 28 and the ambulance carrying him was blocked by Israeli troops astatine a checkpoint. Saddam died 10 days later.

Children successful exile camps cognize the steep terms of warring for freedom, and arsenic adults, they inactive take to wage it anyway.

In the Gaza Strip, exile camps similar Jabalia person besides been large strongholds of Palestinian absorption for decades for the aforesaid reason. Historically, Jabalia has been the largest exile campy successful Palestine, lodging 100,000 people. In 1987, it produced the spark that ignited the archetypal Intifada. It has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli subject assaults which person near down wide casualties and destruction.

After the commencement of Israel’s genocidal war, the Israeli service launched respective assaults connected the camp, each clip pursuing the aforesaid brutal template: monolithic bombardment, location demolitions, and displacement of civilians. Each clip it claimed to person dismantled the resistance, lone to instrumentality respective months aboriginal for different “clearing operation”.

In the fall, the Israeli service launched a monolithic run of aerial strikes that devastated Jabalia. Some 90 percent of buildings are estimated to person been destroyed.

Yet the absorption persisted, launching operations that resulted successful important Israeli subject casualties.

The ongoing battle connected Jenin uses the aforesaid failed playbook to “dismantle” absorption done destruction. It has killed much than 45 Palestinians, including two-year-old Laila al-Khatib, forcibly displaced 20,000, demolished full blocks, besieged a hospital, and chopped disconnected the metropolis from the remainder of the West Bank.

Wholesale demolition did not enactment successful Jenin earlier and it did not enactment successful Gaza, truthful wherefore does Israel deliberation it would now?

This subject strategy exposes Israel’s cardinal blindness. It sees absorption arsenic thing tangible – fighters to eliminate, tunnels to destroy, leaders to assassinate, weapons to seize. But successful Palestine’s exile camps, absorption flows done generations similar humor done veins. It lives successful the stories passed down, successful the stubborn insistence connected dignity nether siege, successful the resoluteness to rebuild what has been destroyed.

History has already written this story. In Jenin, successful Jabalia, successful each exile campy crossed Palestine, generations person transformed spaces of impermanent refuge into imperishable monuments to an thought that cannot beryllium killed. With each invasion, with each demolition, with each effort to interruption the volition of these communities, the resoluteness lone strengthens. It lives successful the determined measurement of a kid walking to schoolhouse done checkpoints, successful the defiant grin of an elder rebuilding their location yet different time, and successful the corporate refusal to judge displacement arsenic destiny.

This is wherefore the Gazafication of Jenin volition fail. You tin termination revolutionaries, but you cannot termination the revolution. You cannot weaponry an thought into submission. You cannot termination the volition to beryllium free.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.