'We are all targeted': Jenin reels from Israeli military operations

The killing of children and Israel's largest military operation in two decades have scarred the occupied West Bank city

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Rayyan Ibrahim Al Sayyed was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin last month. He was just 15 years old.

The teenager was shy and loveable, his family said. But he was also rebellious and would bunk off school and hang around in the local cemetery – the burial place for members of armed factions and civilians killed during Israeli operations.

Rayyan was disillusioned with going to school, and became increasingly fixated on wanting to protest against Israel's occupation, his mother Reem, 46, told The National. His determination deepened following Hamas's October 7 attacks last year and the ensuing Gaza war, which has claimed the lives of more than 43,900 Palestinians.

“From when the war started until today, even though he was young, he would say, ‘Mum, I want to be a martyr,’” Mrs Al Sayyed said in an interview at the family home five days after Rayyan's death.

Three family members described how they would often lock the door to prevent the teenager leaving the house. “I would not let him go out,” said Rayyan’s older sister, Sirwar, 27. “If the army came, I would be upset about what could happen. I would close all the doors, but in the end he would get annoyed and go out.”

On October 14, the morning he was killed, Rayyan heard that an Israeli special forces brigade was entering the city. He left the house to join his friends, to try to protest against the Israeli operation. His father, Ibrahim, 51, said: “I called him and told him to come back. He said, ‘I’m not coming back.’

“After that call, he stopped replying. Fifteen minutes later, I was told Rayyan had been injured. He was martyred after arriving at the hospital. The bullet went into his heart.”

Rayyan is one of 175 children killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem over the past year, according to UN figures. As military crackdowns become more intense, and violence from Israeli settlers grows, it is the highest number of children killed in one year in the occupied territory since the UN started detailed records in 2006.

Defence for Children International Palestine said Rayyan was shot from about 20 metres by a soldier inside a “heavily armoured Israeli military vehicle” after allegedly throwing stones at the convoy. He was shot twice, the child rights organisation affirmed, in the left side of his chest and the neck. He was pronounced dead after doctors at a local hospital were unable to control the bleeding in his lungs.

According to the human rights organisation B'Tselem, under Israel’s own rules, shooting to kill is permitted only when members of the security forces or other individuals are in “life-threatening danger”. Even then, lethal fire is only allowed if there is no other way to avert the risk, and only at a person’s legs and after firing warning shots.

The Israeli military did not respond to questions about Rayyan's death. Defence for Children International Palestine and other rights organisations maintain that Israeli soldiers are almost never held accountable for the killings of children.

Jenin has a long history as a centre of Palestinian opposition against occupation, dating back to rebellions against British Mandate rule in the 1930s. It was the centre of a major battle in 2002, during the Second Intifada, and Israel sees it as a centre of Palestinian militancy.

In August and September, the Israeli military carried out a 10-day military operation focusing on Jenin and surrounding refugee camps, home to tens of thousands of Palestinians who were forced from their homes or fled as the state of Israel was established in 1948. The Israeli military described it as “counterterrorism” work, aiming to root out militants planning attacks on Israelis.

According to the UN, the operation was the longest in the West Bank since 2002, and resulted in at least 36 Palestinian deaths, including eight children, 87 injuries, and at least 60 arrests. One Israeli soldier was also killed.

Palestinians from Jenin refugee camp, which houses 24,000 people, as well as local officials described how Israeli forces besieged the area and cut off supplies, forcing many residents to flee under fire.

“I stayed in the camp for six days and when the water ran out, there was no power and we ran out of food,” said Ahlam, a camp resident, using her first name only for security reasons. “I left with my children, my sister and her kids. When I was fleeing with my family, there were snipers, bullets and bombs. My children started crying. My daughter was so shocked, she cried so much.”

Ahmed Jebril, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent’s ambulance and emergency service, said that cutting off utilities not only left civilians like Ahlam in their homes without supplies, but complicated rescuers’ attempts to reach the injured and provide aid. The Red Crescent Society tried to deliver food, aid, water and medicine, facing obstacles such as destroyed roads and attacks on rescue crews.

“They were prevented from delivering aid and reaching patients and the injured, as a result of the camp siege,” Mr Jebril told The National this week. “The attacks were varied, such as the use of drones to target citizens, which led to an increase in the number of martyrs and injured.”

The destruction from that raid and subsequent military operations and the toll on civilians are clear. Piles of rubble line the streets of Jenin, in the city itself and the neighbouring refugee camp. A roundabout appeared to have been run over with heavy machinery, and dust from razed concrete and tarmac filled the air.

Jenin’s Governor, Kamal Abu Al Rub, told The National that 25km of roads have been destroyed in Israeli raids in recent months, with an estimated repair cost of $1 million per kilometre. Israeli military operations have partially or completely destroyed at least 1,000 houses over the past two years in the governorate, he added. “Even now, Israeli diggers are destroying the roads,” he said in a phone interview. “The destruction is increasing every day.”

Homes are among the buildings destroyed. Raeda Abu Ali, 59, can remember every inch of her home in Jenin refugee camp, now blackened and burnt after a gas canister exploded during Israeli operations. “This was the sitting room; here was the fridge,” she said. “I raised my children here, we lived our lives here. Everything I put into this house, how can I forget it? It is very difficult,” she added.

A red and black patterned cushion lay in the burnt rubble on the floor, while a broken wooden bench frame had been blown sideways across the room.

The apartment block, once home to six families, was attacked three times in the past year by Israeli armed forces, she said – most recently about a week earlier. She is now renting accommodation outside the camp, at a cost of 2,000 Israeli shekels (US$535) a month.

In the same block of apartments, Raeda’s brother Samih, 47, a local government employee, walked over the wreckage, pointing out women’s dresses piled in a dirty scrum on the floor and walls covered in shrapnel marks. “It was all newly done up, now it’s all gone,” he said. He pointed to holes in neighbouring buildings from where he said Israeli forces had launched strikes. The white feathers of his prized doves lay festering in a bucket on the roof.

The siblings said the Israeli military may have been looking for militants squatting in the building after the family fled. Raeda said that everyone in the camp felt threatened, no matter who the target of the attacks was.

“We are all targeted – women, children, the resistance fighters, people walking in the streets, schools, doctors. It’s not that there is something here,” she said. The Israelis “come here and take out their anger here”, she added.

The Israeli military did not respond to specific questions about the Abu Ali family home and why it was targeted. In a general statement posted on social media after the Jenin assault, it said the raid resulted in “14 terrorists eliminated, over 30 suspects apprehended, and approximately 30 explosives planted under roads dismantled”.

Like elsewhere in the West Bank, the economic situation in Jenin is dire and the governorate’s unemployment rate stands at over 50 per cent, Mr Abu Al-Rub added. The economic strain is affecting the security situation, as a beleaguered economy breeds violence and lures young men towards armed factions.

“Israel is the one encouraging violence and encouraging men younger than 20 years old to enter a cycle of violence,” he said. “A man who is less than 20 years old, or someone who has graduated from university and who has been looking for a job for more than a year without success, he will go towards the source of money, regardless of who that is.”

After the October 7 attacks, Israel banned workers from the occupied territory from their former jobs in Israel, cutting off a sizeable source of liquidity. It also froze money transfers to the Palestinian Authority, meaning state employees have gone months with partial or non-existent salaries.

“The Palestinian government’s abilities are limited because the Israelis are still blocking the authority’s funds, and we cannot provide full salaries to employees, so even business people do not have sources of income,” Mr Abu Al-Rub continued. “The more the economy contracts, the greater the burden on the security forces.”

As the economy nears collapse and Israeli attacks continue, support for militant groups in the West Bank has remained high, while the Palestinian Authority remains deeply unpopular.

“Negotiations and a ceasefire will not bring back Palestine,” said Ziad, an 18-year-old carrying a large automatic rifle on a street in Jenin camp. “We fight the Israelis for God.”

According to a September poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, three-quarters of West Bank Palestinians described themselves as satisfied with Hamas’s performance during the war, compared to 39 per cent of Gazans.

Israeli military officials believe that the Palestinian Authority is unable or unwilling to confront militants in the West Bank, prompting them to carry out operations themselves.

“What is happening in Jenin, like what is happening in all of northern Judea and Samaria, happened because the Palestinian Authority has not been functioning in this area,” said Yaron Buskila, an Israeli reservist lieutenant colonel, using a term preferred by Israeli authorities for the West Bank.

“I don't have anything against the Palestinian Authority,” said Mr Buskila, who was previously responsible for multiple classified operations in the West Bank. “I think the Palestinian Authority as an idea could be very, very successful. I have a problem with those inside the Palestinian Authority that have just used it for their own needs and to encourage terror.”

But the Israeli military operations in Jenin have a continuing and lasting impact on civilians, Palestinian officials said.

In an interview at her Ramallah office, Palestinian Minister for Social Development Samah Hamad told The National that her ministry converted all its services into relief and humanitarian aid during the Jenin siege in August and September, but that the needs are continuing.

“We have our district office there, and we are continuing to provide social protection services,” she said. “We cannot stop because this is a huge need.”

Medical workers are also still dealing with the fallout of the raid. “To this day, the health and psychological situation in the camp is very bad,” said Mr Jebril of the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Every Palestinian interviewed said that Israeli attacks on Jenin had intensified over the past year. “I say it’s increased 200 per cent, never before have we seen such destruction of the infrastructure, or killing of innocent people in cold blood,” said Mr Abu Al Rub, the governor.

As the war in Gaza continues, Jenin’s residents are fearful that the conflict will turn to focus on the West Bank, and Israel will increase efforts to annex the area. Last week, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also has a defence ministry supervisory role for settlers, said he hoped Israel would extend sovereignty into the occupied West Bank in 2025.

“Of course it’s possible,” said Rayyan’s mother. “They are ready for anything, you can’t say yes or no. You can’t understand people who think like them.”

Like many young Palestinians before him, her son has been buried in the martyrs’ cemetery.