Searching Jenin

Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002

Cune Press

© Cune Press 2003

Published by Cune Press Publishing at Smashwords

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The dust had not settled and the dead had not been buried when Israel’s propaganda machine went into full swing. They set up a straw man and argued that, technically speaking, Jenin was not a massacre. We may never know how many Palestinians died in Jenin. In the end, however, it is not the number who died that will tell the story. It is the savage cruelty experienced by those who survived Israel’s assault that will ultimately define the legacy of this devastated square mile of earth. Their story must be told and remembered.

—Dr. James Zogby,

President of the Arab American Institute

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Searching Jenin

Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion 2002

Edited by Ramzy Baroud

Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, photojournalist Mahfouz Abu Turk has been beaten and wounded by the Israeli army four times and has been arrested once. After he worked on Searching Jenin, the Israeli government revoked Mahfouz’s Jerusalem residency for two months, thereby forcing him to make a difficult choice. He could risk imprisonment by remaining in Jerusalem illegally, or he could leave his family, his home, and his job.

Mahfouz Abu Turk was one of the first reporters to enter the Jenin refugee camp. On April 16, Mahfouz and a team of three otherjournalists approached the camp on foot. They watched the patrolling tanks and waited for an opportunity to enter. Finally, when they thought it was clear, they ran into the camp. Just then an Israeli tank rumbled around the corner and the commander spotted them. In a few moments they were being held at canon-point.

A little later, Mahfouz noticed an opportunity and dodged around a corner. He was making his escape when he ran into more Israelis. They blindfolded him, handcuffed him, and threw him into an Israeli jeep. Then they took him to Salem where he found dozens of Jenin residents in detention. Mahfouz was not allowed to call his family or a lawyer. The Israelis interrogated and harassed Mahfouz for twenty-four hours. His wife and his friends had no idea if he was alive or dead. For that day he was one of the Disappeared of Jenin.

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JENIN REFUGEE CAMP

1. Zahrah neighborhood

2. Entrance to Sahah

3. UN Compound

4. Elementary school for girls

5. Martyr’s Cemetery

6. Al-Kbir Mosque

7. Jenin Hospital

8. Center of Sahah

9. Abdullah Azam Mosque

10. Al-Ansar Mosque

11. Jurit al-Dahab neighborhood

12. Sumran neighborhood

13. Damaj neighborhood

14. Hawashin neighborhood

15. Al-Jabriat neighborhood

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Searching Jenin

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Contents

Map of Jenin Camp

Preface

Introduction

Timeline

Jenin Resident Testimonies

International Observer Testimonies

Confirmed Palestinian Deaths

Photographs

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

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Preface

Noam Chomsky

Twenty years ago, after an earlier upsurge of settler-IDF violence, one of Israel’s most eminent writers, Boaz Evron, wrote a sardonic account of how to deal with the lower orders—the Araboushim in Israeli slang. Israel should keep them on a short leash so they recognize that the whip is held over their heads. As long as too many people are not being visibly killed, then Western humanists can accept it all peacefully, asking, What is so terrible?

US-Israeli propagandists understand this lesson without his advice. They made sure—it wasn’t very hard—that scrutiny of the vicious crimes in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, and elsewhere would focus on one primary question: Was there a purposeful massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Jenin refugee camp? If not, then civilized people can accept it all peacefully. After all, surely no one but an anti-Iraqi racist would object too strenuously if Iraqi forces commemorated the 35th anniversary of a harsh and brutal military occupation of Israel by rampaging through Israeli cities, levelling large areas with bulldozers and tanks, keeping the population under siege for weeks without food or water or access to medical care, destroying cultural centers and the institutions of government and archaeological treasures in ancient towns, making it crystal clear to the Yids in every possible way that the whip is held over their heads—but not slaughtering hundreds of them at once—slowly instead.

The guardians of journalistic integrity also understand this lesson without instruction. Reviewing the handling of the Jenin story, the most prestigious media watchdog, the Columbia Journalism Review, condemns the British press for embracing Israel’s guilt as established fact and ridicules the UN for planning an investigation that would obviously be tainted by the political sympathies of any team it would assemble. But all was not lost: Enter the independent US news media, on a fact-finding mission of their own, which refuted the anti-Israel slanders and revealed that there was no deliberate, cold-blooded murder of hundreds. To translate, the independent US media reached exactly the same conclusions about mass slaughter as the disreputable British media (and others), which, however, failed the test of independence by not adopting the framework of US-Israeli propaganda as rigidly as the editors of the Review deem appropriate.

In such ways, the US-backed Israeli war crimes in the spring invasion were transformed into yet another demonstration of the dedication of the US client state to the purity of arms, yet another proof that it upholds moral sensitivity [as] a principle of political life and is held to a higher law, as interpreted by journalists (New York Times); and that it is guided by high moral purpose perhaps unique in history (apart from the US itself) (Time magazine). That is an achievement of which any propaganda system should be proud. Fortunately, the independent US media did not quite merit the insulting praise of their cheerleader. Careful readers could learn at least a little about the crimes that had taken place, though not in the shocking detail presented in the Israeli and foreign press. And crucially, they were protected carefully from the complicity of their own government. To overcome these barriers to comprehension is a task of utmost importance, if further tragedy is to be averted.

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Introduction

Ramzy Baroud

Chaos wrought by Israeli armored vehicles and snipers enforcing a curfew trapped a young Palestinian journalist. Mae Shaheen had entered the camp at dawn and paced the dusty streets for hours. She spent her day meeting people and recording their testimonies. But her interviews took longer than planned. Now the light was growing dim, and she found herself walking alone through abandoned lanes. There were no taxis to carry her back home. Residents who might have helped had sealed their doors. They did not trust knocking strangers. The only sound she could hear was the roar of the tanks’ diesel engines in the distance. Everything else was silent.

As she walked, Mae saw a neighborhood in ruins. Where were the men, women, and children who had lived here just days before? Cinder block houses and apartments were smashed. The scene was surreal. It was like a Hollywood production set. By now the sun had set and a desert chill settled in. The electricity was off, street lights were dead. The neighborhood waited in darkness. A curfew had been imposed at dusk, and Mae Shaheen knew that she was in trouble.

Mae could hear the tanks closing in. She could hear the loudspeakers. Those who violate the curfew will be shot! they announced in Arabic. Mae found a place in the rubble and hid in fear. In a few minutes the tanks turned and the sound of their engines grew more distant. She could hear single shots, then bursts of fire. The shots were on the other side of the camp. The sound of the tanks grew more distant. Still, Mae waited.

Two hours after midnight, Mae’s colleague, Ali Samudi, called Mae on her cell phone, took down directions, then defied the army’s orders and stole into the camp. He raced through the abandoned streets in his battered 1988 Fiat, protected only by his velocity. He was able to retrieve Mae, and the two fled to safety outside the camp. The following morning, Mae Shaheen returned to the Jenin refugee camp with a crew of five journalists who carried tape recorders, cameras, and a long list of questions.

Mae’s story was typical. The team of Palestinian journalists had close calls, overcame obstacles, and endured hardships while collecting material for Searching Jenin. They sought to record a segment of the Arab-Israeli conflict, an event that has become a symbol of the uprising known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

The Israeli invasion of Jenin is remembered by Palestinians as a massacre whereas Israelis recall a fair battle. To Israelis Jenin is an example of soldiers fighting terrorists. The international community can’t make up its mind about Jenin. Some accuse Israel of war crimes, while others advocate Israel’s right to defend itself.

Television, radio, and print news outlets presented the opportunity for Israeli soldiers and officers to spread their version of the events in Jenin. Yet the residents of the camp—those witnesses to whatever atrocities occurred, the ones who pitched tents on the ruins of their homes—could not amplify their voices to the same level. Searching Jenin documents their perspective. It is the chorus of Jenin’s Palestinian refugees. In this book their words bypass the mass media filters, described by Chomsky, that normally would twist or frame their meaning. Their voices dodge the denials and exaggerations of politicians. Their emotions are immune to political sensitivities that ensnarl the United Nations and other international organizations.

When Scott C. Davis of Cune Press approached me about a book on Jenin, I was skeptical—the cards seemed stacked against us. Some warned that it would be impossible to penetrate Jenin, which was under an extremely tight curfew. With the world’s attention focused on the region, Israelis would restrict those entering the camp. To add to the difficulty of obtaining interviews, the invasion and the ensuing destruction drove many Jenin residents from their homes and scattered them throughout towns and villages in the West Bank. Most daunting of all, the Israelis were tightening their iron fist around the entire West Bank. It would be a dangerous place for journalists. In truth, it would be nearly impossible for them to gain entry to this war zone.

The start of Searching Jenin was anything but promising. I traveled to Jordan and tried for a full month to enter the West Bank. But Israeli officials refused to acknowledge my American citizenship. To them I was a Palestinian—end of story—and they denied permission to enter.

I countered by assembling a team of Palestinian journalists who were already in the West Bank. The team included Mahfouz Abu Turk and Ali Samudi, who were two of the first journalists to enter the Jenin refugee camp in the final days of the Israeli invasion. Abu Turk, a Reuters photojournalist, snapped some of the first photos from Jenin, and Ali Samudi recorded much of the footage aired by Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television and other leading news agencies around the world.

Searching Jenin examines the April invasion through the eyes of those who lived it. The book presents a missing link in the drama known by many as the Jenin Massacre and by others simply as the Battle of Jenin. It narrates the story, not by a third party, but by the survivors.

Problems and Solutions

Searching Jenin doesn’t answer every question regarding atrocities in the refugee camp. While eyewitnesses openly described their own plight, they did not generalize. Yet this book presents information that can be used to draw larger conclusions. One question that this book can help to answer: How did the Israeli army and the Palestinian resistance conduct themselves toward the civilians of Jenin?

A question that this book cannot answer: How many Palestinians were killed in Jenin in the two weeks of fighting, bombardment, and home demolitions? Israel still holds hundreds of Palestinian men from the Jenin refugee camp in its prisons in the West Bank and in Israel. Most of these prisoners are confirmed alive, yet the fate of others remains unknown. There is still rubble to be removed. There are still names to be accounted for and missing to be found. Some fighters reportedly rushed to Jenin to help defend the camp prior to the Israeli invasion in early April 2002. These fighters might be reported missing in Tulkarm and Ramallah, but they actually went missing in Jenin. Because Israeli soldiers vandalized and destroyed Palestinian records in hospitals, schools, and government buildings, this question may never be answered.

Most of the work on this book was done during fierce fighting later in the summer when the IDF had reoccupied Jenin. As problems arose, we found creative solutions. For example, when military curfews put the lives of our reporters in danger and made it unwise for them to move, we recruited reporters based in Jenin. These reporters knew the camp intimately. They could avoid the army and gain quick, safe access to residents’ homes.

Our local reporters aided us greatly by earning the trust of Jenin’s residents. The residents were more at ease relaying experiences to our reporters, rather than to foreign journalists. We had the opportunity to interview families of Palestinian fighters. These were people who often refused to speak about their lives and loved ones with foreign journalists or even with the Arab media. I am especially proud of interviews with people such as the widow of Mahmud Tawalbe, the Islamic Jihad leader who was recognized (along with Abu Jandal) as the leader of the resistance in the camp. Both Tawalbe and Abu Jandal were killed in the fighting. We also managed to interview the only Palestinian who witnessed Abu Jandal’s execution.

Although the testimonies of Jenin residents were translated from Arabic, we minimized edits to preserve the character of the interviews. We aimed to reveal the victims as they were and are—innocent, angry, grieving, proud, spontaneous. Our goal was to uncover the lives and emotion behind the casualty figures. Little Rund al-Shalabi shared her grief and inability to comprehend the Israeli soldiers who broke her toys. We preserved Rafidia al-Jamal’s emotions when she described how she lay wounded in the street clutching her dead sister while snipers prevented her from reaching her husband who beckoned from their doorway. We waited patiently as some of the witnesses wept through their stories. We asked little children what they wanted to be when they grew up.

In the end, we gathered scores of interviews. We were forced to discard some that were duplicates and those that were cut too short by circumstances beyond our control.

To rebut claims that the testimonies are exaggerations and lies, we included eyewitness accounts from internationals who visited or sneaked into Jenin just after the Israeli army redeployed to the outskirts of the camp. Americans, Europeans, Israelis journalists, international observers, and aid workers bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Israeli armed forces.

Perceptions

It is not Jenin’s size or the number of its inhabitants, but rather the events that unfolded in Jenin that make it significant. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the camp was established in 1953 within the municipal boundaries of the town of Jenin on 373 dunums of land, roughly one square kilometer. The camp’s inhabitants, an estimated 13,000 registered refugees, were expelled from villages that are still visible from the camp. These villages are now located within the so-called Green Line in today’s Israel. The camp is in the northern stretch of the West Bank. It fell under Israeli occupation with the rest of the West Bank in 1967. The Jenin refugee camp’s status changed in 1995 when it was put under the administrative control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), as dictated by the 1993 Oslo Accords.

The Jenin refugee camp is densely populated. Women, children, and elderly constitute nearly two-thirds of its population. Forty-two percent of the camp residents are under fifteen years of age. Half of the population of the neighboring town of Jenin also consists of refugees who have overflowed from the camp. The population of the camp is generally poor with 307 families registered by UNRWA as special hardship cases. Since the beginning of the uprising, poverty in the camp has increased with the result that food and water are in short supply during military closures and curfews.

We asked a young man about Israel’s perception of the impoverished camp. Israel calls us the house of bees, but we think of our camp as the home of resistance, he said. In fact, for quite some time Israel has considered the Jenin refugee camp a place where terrorists thrive. The contrast between Israel’s perception of the camp and the perceptions of the camp’s residents shaped events. Another factor was the history of interaction between Jenin and Israel since 1967. The Israeli invasion of Jenin is not an isolated effort to tame bees or crack down on terrorists.

When Palestinians staged an uprising against the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in September 2000, Jenin was at the forefront. The residents of the camp suffered many casualties. Israel often claims that fighters from Jenin were leaders in suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli soldiers, armed settlers, and civilians. To understand the invasion of Jenin requires a look at certain events that occurred before the invasion.

The Violence that Preceded

The year 2002 began with violence as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised new tactics to crush Palestinian resistance. When Israel declared its intention to pull out of parts of the West Bank that had been reoccupied after the outbreak of the Intifada, Palestinians were skeptical. They viewed the Israeli move as propaganda designed to improve Israel’s image. The Israeli army actually did order the redeployment of its forces on several occasions, yet the Israelis remained too close for Palestinian comfort.

By the beginning of 2002, Israeli tanks were only 100 meters from the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israel continued its deadly raids and assassinations, its incursions into West Bank and Gaza towns, and continued to demolish Palestinian homes—homes and apartment buildings that housed relatives of accused Palestinian fighters. Attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets increased and claimed the lives of many civilians and soldiers. On January 10, Israeli bulldozers and tanks invaded the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, demolishing dozens of homes and displacing hundreds. Israel claimed that Palestinian fighters used these homes to target a nearby Jewish settlement built on Palestinian land in the southern Gaza Strip. Less than one week later, a top leader in the Palestinian Fatah movement, Raed al-Karmi, was assassinated by Israeli forces. This act provoked a suicide bomb attack on Israeli civilians in the West Bank town of Hadera, north of Israel. Six people were killed.

Israel retaliated by bombing Tulkarm in the West Bank, killing one and wounding forty. Two days later, on January 21, Israel invaded Tulkarm and, on January 24, Israeli forces assassinated top Hamas leader, Bakr Hamdan, as well as two other Hamas members. Repeating a pattern established after Israel’s assassination of al-Karmi, a suicide bomber retaliated one day later and wounded twenty-five Israelis in Tel Aviv. On February 4, Israel killed five Palestinians in Gaza and, on February 19, killed eight Palestinians with missiles and bombs.

At this point Palestinian and Arab media discussed a change of tactics by the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian Authority and other militant groups were in conflict. Whereas the PA condemned suicide bombings, other groups argued that a suicide bomb is one of the few weapons capable of inflicting painful blows on an enemy that has far superior weapons and much more money. On February 22 and March 3, Palestinian fighters targeted the Israeli military. In the first attack they killed six occupation soldiers and on March 3 they killed seven soldiers. Israel responded to these attacks by bombing Palestinian areas. They killed thirty-three Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, including five children.

Israel’s deadly raids and Palestinian bombings increased rapidly. Hundreds were killed and wounded during the month of March 2002. On March 8 alone, Israeli troops killed forty Palestinians in assaults on the West Bank and Gaza. On March 12, thirty-one more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks. Palestinian attacks on Israeli troops, settlers, and suicide bombings subsequently increased. On March 27, a suicide bomber killed himself along with nineteen Israelis in Natanya.

On the Political Front

In the weeks before the Jenin invasion, the political front was equally heated. In Israel, a poll conducted by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that sixty-one percent of the Israeli public was dissatisfied with Sharon’s performance. After all, Sharon had not fulfilled his promise of improved security. The Israeli government in turn blamed Yasser Arafat for the escalation of violence, and trapped him in his Ramallah headquarters.

In February 2002, growing