Since the war in Gaza began, Israel’s military operations in the occupied West Bank have become more frequent, and more forceful.
The northern city of Jenin – the epicentre of these raids before the Hamas attacks – is now a weekly battleground.
The Palestinian teenagers I met who were running from the army there on Tuesday had the sceptical dismissive attitudes of much older men – mocking the Palestinian president and his appeals to the world for protection against Israel’s occupation.
Behind them, Israel’s armoured bulldozers and military jeeps moved around the entrance to Jenin refugee camp, explosions and gunfire from across the city echoing along the deserted, shuttered streets.
The walls of this city are covered with the pictures of young men killed by Israeli forces – some of them members of armed groups like Hamas, proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and others. The posters and the faces are refreshed, year after year.
Six men were killed in the operation here on Tuesday; four of them in a drone strike, witnesses said.
Israel says its operations in the West Bank are targeting members of armed groups, often those with Israeli blood on their hands.
But the director of Jenin’s hospital, Wissam Bakr, said a chronically ill 13-year-old child also died after being blocked from reaching medical care.
“The persistence of the incursions into Jenin, and the killing of young people – this will make the people more and more angry, because every day we lose one of our friends,” he said.
“This will not bring peace for Israel – this will bring more and more resistance.”
On 7 October, Hamas gunmen from Gaza attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage. More than 18,400 people are said to have been killed in Gaza during the war that followed.
Here in the West Bank, 271 Palestinians, including 69 children, have been killed since the attacks – more than half the total number for the year. Almost all of them have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations.
Since the Hamas attacks, support for armed resistance has risen in many parts of the West Bank – in places like Nablus and Jenin.
“I see it in the voices of people, in the music they play in their cars, from Facebook or social media posts, from my debates with my students,” said Raed Debiy, a political scientist and youth leader for the West Bank’s ruling party, Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA).
He told me the attacks were “a turning point” for Palestinians, just as they were a shocking turning point for Israelis.
“The people, especially the new generation, are backing Hamas now, more than at any other moment,” he told me. “In the previous 30 years, there were no models, no idols for the new generation; now they see there is something different, a different story is being created.”
Even his 11-year-old nephew, he said, had little respect for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but idolises Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida – “because he protects us”.
by Filian K (rwenzori tv) @filiankule on twitter
