Jenin Massacre: 9 Palestinians Killed By Israeli Occupation Forces

Amber Hamed, BA Politics and International Relations

In the early hours of the morning, 26 January 2023, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided Jenin refugee camp without warning and opened re on camp residents. is resulted in the killing of 9 residents of the camp leaving many more injured, making it the deadliest massacre in the West Bank since 2002, during the Second Intifada, which resulted in over 50 deaths. Eyewitnesses say the IOF, operating illegally under international law in the West Bank, proceeded to open re on ambulances near Jenin Government hospital preventing aid to the injured and used tear gas in the children’s ward of the hospital.

Just a day a er the Jenin massacre, Khairi Alqam, a Palestinian civilian from Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem killed 7 Israeli settlers in a settlement in East Jerusalem. Subsequent international condemnation of the operation followed, but little to no condemnation of the Jenin massacre was to be seen. is was claimed by armed Palestinian groups to be a retaliation for the killings in Jenin. Later that day, thousands of Palestinians gathered to take part in the funeral of the victims of the Jenin massacre and protests erupted across the West Bank.

e Israeli cabinet consequently decided on a number of counter-measures including the demolition of Khairi Alqam’s home as well as arming settlers, issuing more rearm licences and expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank. Increased violence by settlers followed with 144 settler attacks being reported in South Nablus, including the smashing and burning of vehicles and attacking local shops and uprooting over one hundred olive saplings in Aqraba. World leaders, such as French President Macron, condemned the operation in Jerusalem, yet kept their silence on the Jenin massacre. is lack of widespread condemnation against Israeli violence and settler colonialism has been interpreted as another example of Israel’s impunity from international law and moral exoneration for its brutal policies against Palestinians. e UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process is one of many who have downplayed Israel’s violence against Palestinians. He expressed his deep sadness for ‘the continuing cycle of violence in the occupied West Bank’ whilst not holding Israel accountable for their role in increased violence in which over 35 Palestinians have been killed at their hands, since just the beginning of 2023. e mainstream media and international community’s reprimands against Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli occupation seem to run counter to the UN’s historical stance on the matter. Following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the UN rea rmed ‘the legitimacy of the struggles of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle’. ey also recognised ‘the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity and sovereignty without outside interference’. As repression by the occupation increases, attention is further drawn to Palestinians’ moral and legal right to resistance against Israeli occupation and settler colonialism.