”DAY AFTER DAY”
The 14 dead in Jenin on Thursday is the highest toll from a single raid in the West Bank since 2005, according to UN figures.
Tensions in the Palestinian territory have boiled over with a sharp increase in Israeli raids since Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, which killed more than 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
In response, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip and sending in ground troops. More than 11,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, more than 180 Palestinians have been killed since the war’s start, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Three Israelis were slain in the same period, officials say.
“Day after day, there is an assault, inside the city, inside the camp, in the villages. We are never safe,” said 39-year-old Salam Hussein, leading three children through the rubble of a razed street in Jenin.
A neighbourhood chicken coop was smashed, a washing line mangled in the fighting, and the blackened clothes strewn on the ground.
A young boy posed for a photo, flashing a peace sign beside a memorial to a previously killed militant, wrecked in Thursday’s battle.
The destroyed tribute showed only the militant’s grin and his arms clutching an assault rifle.
“We go out with our children under the shelling, under the bombs. We miraculously survive,” said Hussein.”Nobody can live a normal life.”
Source: CNA
