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As much as one tries to understand the logic of the Israeli army and occupation forces in Palestine, one cannot find an explanation. The latest war on Jabalia is one example.
Yes, it is known that Israel would love to ethnically cleanse the north of Gaza. Before Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin dreamed of the Strip disappearing. It hasn’t yet and it won’t in the future either. A project called the “general’s plan” has been circulating in various forums. It describes the wicked Israeli plan to empty the north of Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants. Clearly, the architect of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Yahya Sinwar, was not in the north of Gaza. Israel says he was killed in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Strip. And it is clear to all that the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas and others are spread throughout the territory.
The Israelis want to keep milking Oct. 7 to carry out such crazy ideas. The north of Gaza includes the economic and professional center of the Strip, namely the city of Gaza. It also includes several Palestinian refugee camps, including the largest and most populous, Jabalia.
Jabalia refugee camp has a population exceeding 100,000. Some of those might now have resettled to the south. However, according to numerous reports, the majority of the refugee population — having realized that once one leaves one’s home, even in a refugee camp, the chances of ever returning become slim — have opted to stay in Jabalia. The population of the camp, which was born out of the 1948 Nakba, is largely made up of second- and third-generation Palestinian refugees. And they have said on more than one occasion, “we were born in Jabalia and we will die here.”
For Palestinians at large, Jabalia has a powerful place in the relatively recent collective memory, as it is connected with the First Intifada. On Dec. 9, 1987, the Palestinian uprising erupted. It began when four Palestinian workers were killed at the Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint, where an Israeli truck collided with their car. Many Palestinians claimed it was a deliberate act after an Israeli was killed in Gaza just days before.
For Palestinians in Jabalia, the morning after the car crash saw anger that had been simmering for two decades boil over. The Israelis had mistakenly read the reaction of a quiet population under their military rule as having accepted they would live forever as an occupied people. But the Jabalia camp erupted in anger. The population was not armed and the only weapons that were readily available to them were stones.
The UN says the humanitarian crisis is dire and food scarcity is rife, as Israel limits nearly all access to humanitarian aid.
Daoud Kuttab
Thus began a protest action that spread quickly, with mostly younger Palestinians pelting the occupiers and their illegal settlers with stones.
The camp has a history of anti-Israeli resistance and has been the scene of repressive Israeli measures. At the time of the First Intifada, Palestinians in Jabalia — like those in the rest of the Occupied Territories — were becoming disillusioned with the political process aimed at ending the oppressive Israeli occupation. Increasing Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land and rising Palestinian birth rates led to a greater population density, accompanied by rising unemployment.
The situation was a powder keg in the lead-up to the First Intifada and the fatal car crash was the spark that lit the fire. Protesters pelted Israeli soldiers with stones and activists called for a boycott of Israeli products.
Today, a new generation has come of age. Thirty-seven years since the outbreak of the First Intifada, the camp and its surrounding areas are now facing a heavy Israeli onslaught. The UN says the humanitarian crisis is dire and food scarcity is rife as Israel limits nearly all access to humanitarian aid in what it claims is an attempt to hamper Hamas’ efforts to regroup.
Humanitarian workers and rights groups say that Israel’s latest offensive is starving hundreds of thousands, with some 400,000 Palestinians trapped in the area.
The horrific pictures and videos coming out of Gaza — including recent footage of people in hospital beds being burned to death by Israeli bombs — have produced strong reactions from global leaders. The Biden administration has in recent days given Israel a 30-day window to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza and has threatened to curb the flow of weapons.
Like all previous attacks and clashes, this war will also come to an end sooner or later. But this brutal war on Jabalia, just like all previous wars in Palestine, will only plant the seeds of anger and hatred for future clashes unless a political solution is found that can give people hope. War only ends when the root causes are addressed. Palestinians, like all people, yearn for a peaceful and quiet future, free from occupation and the Israeli military dictating their lives. Jabalia is not and will not be an exception.
- Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. X: @daoudkuttab