PA Daily claims that counter-terror protocols implemented in Jenin are "aggressive, barbaric, and wild attacks to subjugate Palestinians"
Excerpt of a column by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist for official PA daily and former advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs
Headline: “We are all Jenin”
“These days we are witness to a new round of the Zionist state’s terroragainst the entire Palestinian land, and first and foremost the Jenin district, the city of Jenin, and the courageous Jenin refugee camp, which are undergoing an aggressive, barbaric, and wild attack to subjugate their residents (refers to counter-terror activities in response to Jenin terrorist Ra’ad Hazem murdering 3 in Tel Aviv; see note below -Ed.)…
The experiences of the near and distant past prove to us that the political, military, and security leadership of the Israeli ethnic cleansing state has learned nothing…
It has ignored the experience of its past – its invasion of the Jenin refugee camp and the siege of the great city 20 years ago (refers to counter-terror operation in 2002; see note below -Ed.), and the series of crimes that it committed one after the other against the district… It has returned to play the same broken record and use the same cheap means and measures to impose a siege on it through a series of violations that were approved by Israeli Minister of Death(sic., Defense) Benny Gantz on Saturday evening [April 9, 2022] (refers to security measures including partial limitation of movement between Jenin and Israeli territory -Ed.)… This is in addition to the continued persecutions, arrests, and assassination attempts, as happened yesterday with the brother of Martyr Ra’ad Fathi Hazem (i.e., Hazem’s brother and accomplice resisted arrest)…
The siege strengthens the determination and position of the groups of the resistance, and not the opposite. Therefore, these measures will backfire on Gantz and his criminal government, which will be the main loser from them on all levels…
I add nothing new when I emphasize that all the districts, cities, villages, and refugee camps in the West Bank – and foremost among them Jerusalem the capital – and also the diaspora and the Interior of the Interior (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel) are [all] Jenin, and are all standing as one body…
Therefore, Jenin is not under siege, but rather it is the one that is besieging the Zionist enemy, closing the ghetto gates on it, and imposing its conditions and its will on it. The entire Palestinian people is Jenin, which will remain an authentic symbol of resistance, giving, sacrifice, and heroism.”
Ra'ad Hazem - 28-year-old Palestinian terrorist and PA Security Forces member who shot and murdered 3 Israeli civilians - 27-year-olds Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini and 35-year-old Barak Lufan - and wounded 14 others when he opened fire on a crowded bar on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022. Hazem escaped the scene of the attack and was found hiding near a mosque in Jaffa by Israeli security forces several hours later. He opened fire on them and was killed in the ensuing shootout.
Jenin – refugee camp north of Nablus that was a major hotbed of terrorism in the PA terror campaign 2000-2005 (the second Intifada). To reduce the attacks, Israeli forces entered Jenin on April 3, 2002, to conduct searches as part of Operation Defensive Shield, which was carried out to destroy the terror infrastructure in the West Bank, and several days of intense fighting against Palestinian terrorists in booby-trapped houses ensued. While the PA claimed that the Israeli forces committed a “massacre” and killed hundreds of civilians, a UN report refuted these claims, confirming that 52 Palestinians were killed in the battle of which the majority were terrorists. 23 Israeli soldiers were also killed in the fighting.