Israeli soldiers and their armored vehicles, this time, seem to have disappeared from this neighborhood, in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. THEN jaber (who testifies on condition of anonymity), on Wednesday 3 September, he goes out to get supplies, the first in a week. There is nothing to eat at home, which has been impossible to leave for a week. Accompanied by his three daughters, with their pigtails tied above their heads and matching Bugs Bunny T-shirts, the father enters the chaos of Khalid Ibn Al-Walid Street, ravaged by the passage of bulldozers breaking up the asphalt in search of possible hidden explosive devices.
Outside, silence reigns. The Israeli army entered Jenin on August 28, at the same time as it invaded two other towns in the north of the West Bank (Tulkarem and the area around Tubas), as part of a large-scale operation against Palestinian armed groups. On Friday morning, September 6, Perhaps the soldiers were putting an end to this. On Wednesday, in the eastern district where Jaber lives, after a final night pass, the soldiers already seemed to be leaving, moving on to other parts of the city, in the Jenin camp below the city, for example. A little later, Shootings will also take place in the centre, near the cinema roundabout, the economic heart of Jenin currently devastated.
“Soldiers everywhere”
Jaber, a bearded, squat, smooth-headed fifty-something, rushes off with enough to last a few days in his plastic bags. The children follow him in single file along the road, which has been torn up for a good kilometre by D9 armoured bulldozers. Their father looks around and sighs. “For several days there were soldiers everywhere. We couldn’t go outside or get close to the windows without risking being shot.” It shows the positions occupied by snipers nearby, on the rooftops, and adds: “Before, the army attacked men. Now it is everyone, women, old people or children. Like in Gaza.”
About ten metres away, Tawfiq Qandil, an 82-year-old man, no longer in his right mind and who had left his home on Saturday, driven by hunger, in the hope of finding bread, was shot dead not far from the mosque. “We shouted at him to go home, but he didn’t understand. They beat him and left him bleeding on the ground until he died.”, Jaber said, his jaw clenched. The children stare into space, avoiding the mud, the rubble, the leaking sewers, the street turned upside down from their childhood. And they rush out, worried, passing by the iron bars, those installed by members of armed groups to try to block their streets and which the bulldozers sweep away as if they were straws of straw.
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