West Bank Palestinians decry Israel’s raids as ‘revenge’

Tulkarm – Amid the warren of Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, in the occupied West Bank, armed Palestinian militants wander around and greet passers-by from the ruins left by an Israeli raid.

The city, home to two refugee camps, shows the scars of the increasing number of Israeli military operations in the West Bank targeting militant strongholds.

Israeli raids were not uncommon before the war triggered by Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack, but the conflict has caused a marked intensification.

The Israeli army says it is “conducting night-time counterterrorism operations to apprehend suspects, many of whom are members of the terrorist organisation Hamas”, and that there have been “over 700 attempted attacks” in the West Bank since the start of the war. 

But Said, a 23-year-old Palestinian militant in Nur Shams, said the operations were an attempt at “revenge” against Palestinians.

“They can’t get over what happened on October 7, they didn’t anticipate it,” he told AFP, weapon in hand. 

The young militant is a member of the “Tulkarm Brigade”, an armed Palestinian organisation that brings together various militant factions.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli forces have conducted eight raids in Tulkarm, including four in December, a militant in the camp told AFP on condition of anonymity.

On October 20, the Israeli army announced the death of a border guard after a confrontation with armed men in the camp.

More than 330 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army or settlers since October 7, including at least 35 in Tulkarm, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.

Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank, sits directly on the border with Israel.

– ‘Home turned upsidedown’ –

The Hamas attack resulted in around 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy the militant group and launched a massive bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip which have killed nearly 24,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

At a bend in an alley, Assoum, a 26-year-old militant, was navigating his vehicle between piles of rubble.

“Nothing will stop us,” he said, adding that support for the brigade was widespread. “The entire camp is a battalion.”

Said and Assoum are both former prisoners of Israel and said they wanted to “bring an end to the occupation”.

On December 26, while demolishing the home of a wanted individual, the Israeli army caused severe damage to the home of Yousef Zendiq, 50.

“My house is uninhabitable” and “my clothes are in the car” said the father of four.

With nowhere to live, he set up a tent.

A week ago, the Israeli army raided the home of one of his relatives, Sabhia Zendiq, 65, and arrested her along with her husband, before releasing them.

When she returned home, she found her home turned upside down.

Israeli soldiers “entered the house and came back with a bag of children’s toys, including some plastic guns, and declared ‘you are terrorists'”, she said.

“They want revenge,” her husband said. “What they can’t do in Gaza they do here.”

– ‘A little Gaza’ –

Sitting amid the rubble, Tamim Khreis, a school principal, was sipping coffee with friends. 

The 42-year-old charged that the Israelis “want to destroy people, displace them and break their resilience”.

Sitting with Khreis, his friend Abdelkader Hamdan interrupted to say: “Before,(the Israelis) drove them out,” referring to what Arabs call the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948 when the establishment of the State of Israel forced 760,000 Palestinians from their homes.

“Today they are pursuing them in the place where they were expelled to,” Hamdan said.

On Al-Manshiya street, all that remained of a two-storey building that once housed a kindergarten and a wedding hall were children’s drawings on the outer walls and a stone plaque with the logo of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Saleh, 10, was playing nearby with his friends. “It’s a nursery school, what do they want with it?” he asked.

“Al-Manshiya is like a little Gaza.”