Jenin’s devastation recalls darkest chapter of violence in occupied West Bank

Recent escalation, which displaced thousands, has been the worst for decades

A boy watches Israeli troops during a military operation inside the Jenin refugee camp. EPA

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Devastated neighbourhoods and tank deployments in Jenin camp in the Israel-occupied West Bank have displaced around 40,000 Palestinians.

Many have been forced to flee decades-old refugee camps, including Nur Shams in Tulkarm, in some of the worst violence since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The escalation, which has seen bulldozers tear up roads and buildings in Tulkarm and Jenin Camp, comes after the near total ruin of Gaza where around two million of 2.3 million people have been displaced, with more than 48,000 killed, mostly civilians.

It’s led to fears that entire towns in the West Bank, home to about 2.7 million Palestinians, could face "Gazafication," upending the Palestinian Authority and pushing the century-long struggle down another dark path.

Last month, Israeli defence minister Israeli Katz said West Bank operations involved “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza”.

The battle of Jenin

Concerns are also based on historic precedent. Jenin Camp, created in 1953, already comprised permanent structures at the time of a widespread uprising against Israeli occupation, the second intifada between 2000 and 2005.

Violence spiked sharply as the post-1993 Oslo Accords peace process broke down amid rising Israeli settlement construction and a surge in motorway construction that expropriated Palestinian land.

A surge in terror attacks including scores of suicide bombings, killing and wounding hundreds of Israelis followed. An attempt to crush the uprising was launched, Operation Defensive Shield, in March 2002. Violence simmered down by 2005 only after around 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians had been killed.

As in the current crisis, Jenin Camp bore the brunt.

“2002 was scary and unprecedented at the time,” says Fadwa, an engineer from Jenin. “The destruction and the long days of the incursion. We were university students and everything was shut down. When it was done, a big portion of the camp was flattened,” she says.

An Israeli soldier walks through the destroyed Jenin refugee camp after the Israeli army entered the city on April 14, 2002. Reuters

Jenin in the second intifada was a turning point for Israeli army urban operations. As soldiers inexperienced in urban combat fought through the narrow alleys in the camp, they encountered countless ambushes and improvised bombs.

A particularly deadly ambush on April 9 in Hawashin district left 13 soldiers killed. Israeli forces, who had already been using bulldozers to uncover hidden bombs and widen alleys – a highly destructive practice – bulldozed most of the neighbourhood and repeatedly struck the area with missiles from attack helicopters. At least 140 houses were destroyed and at least 4,000 people were left homeless.

“The destruction extended well beyond any conceivable purpose of gaining access to fighters, and was vastly disproportionate,” Human Rights Watch later reported.

“People lived to talk about Jenin,” recalls Fadwa. “Children grew up on those stories, who are the young men and women being attacked by today’s relentless attacks on the camp and the city. Now what is scary is that despite the very obvious attacks, the continuing complete destruction, the world watched and has done nothing to stop it. They conspire with it. People were not displaced like that before.”

“Ambulances were prevented from moving within the Jenin refugee camp,” Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem wrote. “There is evidence that little or no warning was given to the residents of some of the houses about to be destroyed.”

PALESTINIANS STAND ON RUBBLE OF DESTROYED HOUSES TO ATTEND RALLY WITH PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT ARAFAT IN JENIN. Palestinians stand on the rubble of destroyed houses to attend a rally with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the Jenin refugee camp May 13, 2002. Arafat visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, site of a five-week Israeli siege, and Jenin, scene of devastation

Today, health services report serious problems getting staff to hospitals and pervasive checkpoints. But there remain key differences in the current Israeli Operation Iron Wall and 2002’s Defensive Shield, not least the huge increase in the displaced, around 20,000 from Jenin alone.

While in 2002, Israeli troops pursued Iran-backed militants in groups including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, today their attack has been preceded by a major Palestinian Authority operation to crack down on the militants, arresting hundreds of suspects and killing as many as 20, including alleged attacks on civilians.

This has worsened a critical problem for the PA, which calls groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad "outlaws." It has for years suffered low popular support, with some recent polls suggesting less than 30 per cent approval.

The situation for the PA has become increasingly tenuous amid rising far-right Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and several years of escalation in the West Bank, preceding October 7.

“The Palestinian Authority has been progressively weakened, which has worsened the security environment and increased the risk of militancy in the West Bank. This has been an continuing, gradually developing issue and in a way, a policy of Israel, happening under the table,” says Noam Ostfeld, Principal Intelligence Analyst at Sibylline, a risk consultancy.

Israeli army vehicles drive down a road amid a weeks-long offensive at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on February 25, 2025. (Photo by Jaafar ASHTIYEH / AFP)

After Hamas’ October 7 onslaught against Israeli communities, which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Israel cut a significant portion of customs revenue at the behest of far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich. Israel collects the funds on behalf of the PA before transferring the funds to Ramallah.

The PA, already suffering years of financial crisis, walked away from the entire arrangement, sending a shock wave through the economy. Israel also suspended permits for about 150,000 Palestinians working in Israel, adding to the financial burden of the West Bank which suffers 35 per cent unemployment, according to the International Labour Organisation.

Historically, Jenin has had some of the highest unemployment in the West Bank, despite a post-2002 reconstruction effort that eased the situation.

“We've seen three aggravating factors compared to previous crises. Firstly, more buried explosive devices. We've seen many more than before, whether under the road or even in walls, in buildings, in houses, especially in Jenin. Then we've seen a significant increase in weapons within the West Bank, significant weapon caches.”

“Secondly we are seeing that the motivation of the militants in the West Bank is driven by the economic crisis. This is also something that Israel has a hand in despite mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority, especially after October 7, Israel increased the restrictions on Palestinians from the West Bank to come and work in Israel. That means that militant and terror groups have more people to potentially recruit from, because more people are without jobs and need money," Mr Ostfeld says.

“All of this feeds into increasing terrorism and Palestinian militant activity in the West Bank. And thirdly, you have intensifying IDF operations. You have the PA which historically didn't do enough, it generally tried to stay away from conflict,” he says.

Palestinian security forces, although fragmented, have long co-operated with Israeli security forces to pursue militants, whom the PA sees as a serious threat, particularly after fighting the groups in Gaza in 2007, a battle won by the Iran-backed Hamas and its Tehran-funded ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Trump dynamics

“We've seen a bit of a change in the PA position in the past few months, possibly because they're trying to present themselves as a viable option for security and also for a potential role policing in Gaza, and because of possible pressure from Trump, and to a lesser extent Biden,” Mr Ostfeld says.

Efforts to break deadlock over payments to the PA and reform the organisation have been stop-start. In January, Israel approved a revenue transfer of $500 million, much of which is owed to Israeli energy companies supplying Palestinian municipal areas. A similar amount is still withheld in a Norwegian account. Before the current operation, Jenin camp was cut off from services, including water and electricity.

“We also see over a longer term, a lot of Israeli far right groups in the government pushing to weaken the Palestinian Authority to prevent the transfer of funds to it,” Mr Ostfeld says.

At the same time however, the US has cut funding to an already underfunded, under-equipped PA security force. While Israel’s security cabinet is reportedly pleased with PA efforts in Jenin, it has withheld ammunition to its security forces at a time when militants are better armed than ever.

The ultimate aim of this fragmented Israeli policy remains unclear.

“The Israelis mastered displacement of the Palestinians and everyone seems to be OK with it," Fadwa says.

"People never had to evacuate or be displaced from the camp or Jenin. We’ve never witnessed that for so long. In these modern days it's very scary and mostly heart wrenching that the Arab region and the world sits with no actual action to stop it. In 2025, you would not expect to see such actions go unchallenged even. Now we know how Palestine was occupied,” Fadwa says.

Mr Ostfeld says there are indications of a changed Israeli posture around Jenin.

“The Israeli military intends to have a battalion situated close to Jenin and two others somewhere in this area, raiding those populated areas, not once a week, not once a month, almost on a daily basis. I think this is what we are likely to see in the future,” he says. Violence, including major raids on Jenin, had been escalating sharply in the two years before October 7 and many analysts say the recent war has been a boon to militants.

“The idea behind that for the IDF is as long as the militant groups are being pursued, as long as they are being hunted, they have less time and less attention to do other attacks.”