Goodbye Jenin, a Symbol of the Struggle Against Israeli Occupation
The Jenin refugee camp is destroyed, and its 21,000 residents have been expelled by the Israel Defense Forces. Another 400 homes are inhabitable. The demolition bulldozers continue their work of destruction even though the camp has already become the "teddy bear" promised by the IDF bulldozer driver "Kurdish bear," who bragged about his actions.
That was in 2002. In 2025, the Jenin camp is even more of a ghost camp than back then; its houses and streets a mass of ruins with sewage flowing through them.
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No one still lives in the Jenin camp. The IDF shoots at anything that moves, and no one dares come close to the killing fields. The camp is dead and its residents have been exiled from it forever. The army announced it would not allow homes and roads to be rebuilt there.
Palestinians carry their personal belongings as they walk past damaged buildings in the Jenin camp for refugees in the occupied West Bank in February.Credit: AFP/John Wessels
For many Israelis, this is happy news. Many others, probably the majority, will shrug their shoulders. For years they have been telling us that the Jenin camp is a "nest of vipers." You can be happy that the nest is now destroyed. But the destruction of this camp is an especially heinous war crime. Those who know the camp, and its residents in particular, can only cry this week.
It would be worthwhile to take a moment to look at the IDF's narrative, as disseminated this week by its media mouthpieces, those who have never set foot in a camp except from inside one of the IDF's armored vehicles.
The destruction of the camp was intended to "ensure the army's freedom of action," the reporters explained: "The operation is now focusing on the infrastructure and engineering aspects;'" "the terrorists[!] built the camp densely and narrowed the roads so that only small vehicles could pass through them;" and "the houses that were destroyed were the necessary minimum."
Palestinians walk through the rubble of what used to be their house in the center of Jenin refugee camp in 2002.Credit: Chryssa Panoussiadou/BAUBAU
The IDF's minimum is the greatest in the world. It was not "terrorists" who built the camp, but the United Arab Emirates, which contributed to its reconstruction after its destruction in 2002. Ironically, the planners were careful to keep the streets as wide as a tank, so that the next time the army of destruction invaded the camp, the tanks would not destroy everything in their path. And what polished and diabolical words are "infrastructure and engineering aspects" to justify total destruction.
Jenin was a fighting camp, a symbol of the struggle against the occupation. In recent years, many armed men had been seen on its streets – it was impossible not to encounter them. They were highly motivated young men. They worked in makeshift laboratories assembling explosives designed to prevent IDF incursions into the camp, as in 2002.
The Jenin camp never surrendered to occupation. If it had been a freedom struggle elsewhere, the camp would have become legendary. Movies with young heroes would have been made about it.
As hard as it is to believe, the camp was a place of ordinary life. It had a wonderful theater that staged productions for children and adults. There was a social and cultural life there, as much as was possible in the harsh reality of a refugee camp. At poor weddings, usually held on the street, guests would throw coins into a bag, without anyone knowing the amount of the gift for the young couple so as not to embarrass anyone. There was a spirit of solidarity.
The stage of the "Freedom Theater" in Jenin Refugee Camp. On the table sheet are pictures of the theater's Palestinian founder Juliano Mer-Khamis, who was murdered in Jenin in 2011.Credit: Nir Kafri
All its inhabitants were refugees and the children of refugees whom Israel expelled from their land in 1948. The residents lived for a longed-for their past. A society rooted in its past and its suffering, like Israeli society, should be able to appreciate this. When we come to destroy their camp for the second time in 25 years, 77 years after being expelled from their land, how can they be expected to ignore history.
The Jenin camp is a pilot. The Nur al-Shams and Tulkarm camps are next. The army has plans for all 18 camps. When you shut down a zoo, you make sure to move the animals to a safe place. When you shut down a refugee camp, its residents are tossed helplessly to the side of the road – for the second and third time in their lives. This is how we will solve the refugee problem: We will turn them into desperate refugees.