Critical Situation in the West Bank

For a month, the city of Jenin had not been targeted by attacks from the Israeli army. Last Tuesday, May 21, 2024, new attacks shook the city:

“Israeli soldiers entered the city in civilian clothes and started shooting people in the streets. A few minutes later, there were soldiers everywhere, with jeeps, drones, and bulldozers. There were even snipers on the rooftops; we couldn’t stick our heads out the window. It was 8 am, and the young people were on their way to school.

The army stayed in Jenin for three days, claiming they were looking for a person, but that person wasn’t there… they killed 7 people, including a doctor and a teacher, and there are at least 30 wounded. A 50-year-old woman is now disabled; doctors had to amputate her legs following the attack.

The mayor of Jenin tried to negotiate with the Israeli authorities for the army to leave the city. He took a lot of risks by driving his car to pick up people who were outside and bring them to a safe place. When the army left, the mayor estimated the damage at 8 billion dollars, with some structures completely destroyed. The sewage is mixed with drinking water since it was destroyed by the army’s massive bulldozers,” said Mayssoun Dawoud.

All this directly impacts the actions of the Observatory of Violence Against Women in Jenin:

“We feel perpetually threatened. Everyone lives hour by hour, not even day by day. People avoid the streets because they are afraid to go out. But we, at the Observatory, continue to move around; we need to see our partners, the police… It’s important to keep implementing actions to support the women and girls of Jenin. The attacks affect our project because women come to the Observatory for basic needs, not necessarily related to violence. Today, for example, we received 10 women seeking help because they no longer have jobs. With the project, we continue to set up training sessions for these women. This week we started a new sewing training, and the number of women enrolled has doubled in the past few months. We are therefore forced to make two groups,” explained Mayssoun Dawoud.

Once again, the head of the Observatory of Violence Against Women reaffirms the importance of associations and shelters for women victims of violence:

A new meeting took place on the morning of May 30, 2024. A few hours later, our partners in Jenin informed us by message that the army had entered the city once again. The workday was not yet over, and they barely had time to get home to safety.