On March 13-14, 2024, I visited the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps in occupied Palestine. Palestinian-Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal accompanied me. Together, we observed and documented an extraordinary level of damage and destruction. The conditions we observed strongly suggest that Israel’s genocidal project is not confined to Gaza.
Little Gaza
The Jenin Refugee Camp is located in the Palestinian city of Jenin, in the northern West Bank. In 1953, the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) established the camp to house Palestinians who were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces in the Nakba of 1948.
Rehab’s family comes from the city of Jenin.
Since its founding, the Jenin camp has become a stronghold of Palestinian militants. It is known as “the martyr’s capital” by Palestinians, and “the hornets’ nest” by Israelis. More recently, due to the death and destruction that Israeli forces have inflicted upon the camp, Palestinians refer to Jenin as “little Gaza“.
While visiting little Gaza, we spoke to a mother whom Israeli forces had used as a human shield while they brutalized her sons. We interviewed a hospital director hours after Israeli snipers had shot dead unarmed Palestinian men seeking cover in the hospital’s emergency ward. And we conversed with the Artistic Director of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, which was ransacked by Israeli forces shortly after October 7.
In July 2023 – three months before the October 7 attacks on Israel – Israeli forces killed eight Palestinians (including five refugees) and wounded fifty more in a brutal assault on Jenin. During our time in Jenin, Rehab and I visited the graves of those eight Palestinians.
Tulkarem
UNRWA established the Tulkarem camp in 1950 in Tulkarem City, in the northwest of the occupied West Bank. It is the second largest refugee camp in the West Bank, and one of its most densely populated.
The camp was severely affected during the second intifada by incursions, arrests, raids and curfews… The main challenges in the camp are overcrowding, unemployment and poor infrastructure. Specifically, the sewerage network is overburdened and experiences frequent blockages. The dropout rate in the schools in the camp is also relatively high.
While visiting the Tulkarem camp, we inspected the remains of an EU-funded, UNRWA-operated daycare centre. As I explained a few days ago, the European Union imposed no sanctions on Israel for its destruction of that daycare centre.
During our visit to the camp, we also saw the camp’s residents work to repair the main commercial avenue in Tulkarem, which the Israeli military has damaged repeatedly.
Genocide in the West Bank
Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
In its January 26, 2024 ruling in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the Palestinian people constitute a “group” within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.
Citing various genocidal statements made by senior Israeli officials, the ICJ found it plausible that, in Gaza, Israel was engaged in at least some of the acts enumerated in Article 2, with an intention to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Prior to the ICJ’s ruling, I argued that the case against Israel for committing genocide in Gaza was a slam-dunk.
The ICJ was not asked to address, however, whether Israel was committing genocide in the West Bank.
In the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, Israel is unquestionably killing and causing serious bodily and mental harm to many Palestinians.
Israel is also deliberately inflicting on West Bank Palestinians conditions of life that are calculated to bring about the destruction, at least in part, of Palestinians living there. It is doing so by a variety of means, including wanton destruction of homes, mosques and UNRWA facilities, and the strangulation of the economy of the West Bank, where the unemployment rate reached 29% by year-end 2023.
The question is whether Israel is committing these acts in the West Bank with the requisite genocidal intent. In my opinion, it is.
Israel’s political elite does not distinguish between the Palestinians of Gaza and the Palestinians of the West Bank. To senior Israeli politicians, all Palestinians are terrorists or potential terrorists. To them, all Palestinians are inferior to Jews, and unworthy of the rights enjoyed by Israel’s Jewish population.
Moreover, the Palestinian people as a whole constitute an insuperable obstacle to Israel’s permanent and comprehensive control of all the land ‘from the river to the sea’ – an overarching objective of Israel’s right, which now dominates Israeli politics. To control Palestine permanently and comprehensively, the Zionist entity must rid Palestine of Palestinians.
For decades, Israel’s political elite wanted and hoped that, by making life insufferable for occupied Palestinians, Palestinians would eventually abandon their homeland. That strategy failed, and miserably so. Israel has therefore opted for a more barbaric approach: an outright genocide.
If Western states enable Israel got get away with obliterating the Palestinian population of Gaza – and all indications are that that is what major Western powers are determined to do – Israel will almost certainly expand its overt war of annihilation to the West Bank.
In one sense, the horrors Israel is inflicting on Gaza are a test run. If they succeed there, Israel will employ them elsewhere.
Evidence of genocidal intent
My video reports from Jenin and Tulkarm set forth some, but not all, of the evidence underlying my view that Israel’s genocidal project extends to the West Bank. I have posted below all ten of those reports.
The total duration of those ten reports is nearly two hours. Below, I provide a brief description of each video report and indicate the duration of the video.
Please note that I recently began to post original content on YouTube on a regular basis. If you find my video reports to be informative, please like the videos you watched, and please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
I do not solicit or accept compensation for my journalism. I do journalism as a public service, because the corporate media have failed us, and because I’m in the very fortunate position of not having to be compensated for my journalism. I’m able to present the evidence without regard to any impact my journalism may have on my financial well-bring. Still, I need your help to reach as broad an audience as possible.
Jenin Refugee Camp
Video #1 (19 minutes, 50 seconds): Israel’s military has damaged and destroyed many homes and other civilian buildings in Jenin, and has torn up major streets repeatedly.
Video #2 (16 minutes, 2 seconds): Israeli snipers shoot dead two unarmed Palestinian men fleeing for cover into a hospital.
Video #3 (14 minutes, 14 seconds): In Jenin Refugee Camp, Israeli soldiers use a mother as a human shield while brutalizing her sons.
Video #4 (six minutes, 19 seconds): Local authorities in Jenin had set aside a plot of land for a theatre complex, but they were forced to convert it into a cemetery to bury the refugees murdered by Israel’s military during the past several months.
Video #5 (29 minutes, 14 seconds): Israel’s military terrorizes Palestinian artists in Jenin Refugee Camp.
Video #6 (2 minutes, 14 seconds): In Jenin, Israel’s military desecrates a monument to AlJazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was murdered by an Israeli sniper in 2023.
Video #7 (3 minutes, 28 seconds): In Jenin, Israel’s military destroys a monument to the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
Tulkarem Refugee Camp
Video #1 (8 minutes, 34 seconds): Israel’s military has damaged and destroyed many homes and other civilian buildings in Tulkarem, and has torn up major streets repeatedly.
Video #2 (2 minutes, 18 seconds): Israeli military demolishes EU-funded, UNRWA-operated daycare centre in Tulkarem Refugee Camp.
Video #3 (25 seconds): Residents of Tulkarem repair the main commercial street after Israel’s military tore it up again.
Tulkarm residents repair road damaged by Israel’s military
I find it incredible that the Trudeau government is so guilty of complicity in supporting Israeli war crimes. Justin think a new hair style or make over will exonerate him and his government.. I guess that is what you get with a consumer society who is totally7 dumbed down. People should wake up and see what is unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank and stop thinking that the Israeli’s actions have anything to do with self defense.
Dimitri, you cannot accept a monetary compensation.
But nobody can prevent you from accepting heartfelt thanks for the amazing and invaluable work you do.
Now, it’s our turn to work.
Thank you for your inspiration
Evelyn
PS: the list of your articles and videos, given in this post, is very much appreciated.
take care.
Despite increased public pressure and widespread criticism of Israel, support for Palestine, there’s still every likelihood that these lates outrages will mark just one more click of the ratchet. I hope this isn’t the case.
Dimitri , what you have documented is invaluable for us to see now and is a document for the future . And thank you for providing us with facts regarding international law and genocide. Israel’s genocidal project is indeed not confined to Gaza.
Your articles and videos enable us to confidently share with others what has happened and to take action in every way we can to stop this genocide.