The camp is like a tall eminent tree, it has branches and leaves; and each leaf is that of a martyr. Palestinian girl from Jenin 2002.
Today (Monday 24 Feb 2025), Netanyahu sent the tanks into Jenin in the northern part of the occupied territories in the West Bank, Palestine. Israeli soldiers hide behind their tanks, their cowardice is legendary, IDF rain bombs down on Jenin. They go into the houses and urinate into the cooking pots. They shoot children and disabled people. If only an Israeli soldier could experience the life of a Palestinian for just one day. “There is no life” says a 9 year old girl to camera. She would be in her 30s now. I wonder how she feels now, if she is still alive. One of the film makers was shot by the IDF after the completion of the film. Now, 23 years on, the Israelis are still sending in the tanks, F35s are bombing the roofs of residential blocks. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced.
Meanwhile their leader, Yassir Arafat, was under siege in Ramallah with an Israeli tank outside his front door and Israeli poison in his blood.
As long ago as 2009, Justice for Palestine Brisbane showed this film Jenin Jenin by Mohammed Bakri about Israeli devastation of the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank in Palestine. After the making of the film, the film’s producer, Iyad Samudi, was shot dead by Israel military. The film Jenin Jenin was banned in Israel.
The film contained a scene with a small girl standing on the rubble of her camp in Jenin, saying that when she heard that Ariel Sharon (Israeli Prime Minister before Netanyahu) was coming to the refugee camp she was so angry she burst into tears. The girl said she had a great desire to take revenge on him. Looking at the camera lens she calmly told us how legendary was the cowardice of the Israeli soldiers. She said they hide inside their tanks when children throw stones. They dropped bombs that fell like rain on her family’s house and nearby houses for two weeks. Finally she asks: What is my life worth? as she stood there in a devastated house and then tells us that she and all her people win resist and win the struggle for their homes and their lives.
How many times must this happen before the world wakes up to stop Israeli destruction of a people, of houses and mosques. The west opposes the Russian Federation’s destruction of Ukrainian lives, apartment blocks and villages. They provide sanctions, arms, training and $billions in aid to Ukraine, but will not even support boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) called for by the Palestinian people.
Ian Curr
23 February 2025