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 January 21.
Bawaqneh said life was tough and uncertain since she was forced to leave Jenin refugee camp — one of three targeted by the offensive along with Tulkarem and Nur Shams.
“We try to hold on to hope, but unfortunately, reality offers none,” she told AFP.
“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 areas of the city.
The Jenin camp is a known bastion of Palestinian militancy where Israeli forces have always operated.
AFP footage this week showed power lines dangling above streets blocked with barriers made of churned up earth. Wastewater pooled in the road outside Jenin Governmental Hospital.
‘Precarious’ situation
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 “on a daily basis”.
“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 healthcare”.
It said the scale of forced displacement and destruction of camps “has not been seen in decades” in the West Bank.
The United Nations says about 40,000 residents have been displaced since January 21.
Israeli Defence 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, including militants, in the territory since then, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to official figures.
