What Palestinian youth in the West Bank are fighting for – in their own words

JENIN, Israeli-occupied West Bank — Israeli forces have withdrawn from the refugee camp in the city of Jenin in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the mayor of Jenin, following a major military assault on Palestinian towns as the Israeli army vows to eradicate militant groups.

Mayor Nidal Ebeidy said the troops had left a trail of devastation: they had leveled roads under which the Israeli military said Palestinians were hiding explosive devices, and they had destroyed houses and mosques from which the insurgents operate.

The operation on the urban camps of Jenin, Tulkarem and al-Faraa is the largest since the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip began almost a year ago. According to Palestinian health authorities, 39 Palestinians have been killed so far, and according to the Israeli military, three Israeli police officers have been killed.

The Israeli military said it began the attacks on August 28 to track down militants operating in those cities and to ward off an attack like that of October 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities. The attack sparked the war in Gaza, which has left more than 40,800 Palestinians dead, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“The Israeli forces destroyed 70 percent of Jenin's infrastructure,” Ebeidy told NPR. “They surrounded the hospitals, killed civilians and destroyed our electricity network. Now we are starting again to rebuild Jenin.”

The heart of the Palestinian armed resistance

The Israeli government built the Jenin refugee camp outside the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank for displaced Palestinians after the 1948 war when Israel was founded. It is home to about 24,000 residents. According to the United Nations.

Like most refugee camps in the West Bank, Jenin was originally a collection of makeshift shelters for Palestinians. Over time, however, residents built concrete buildings, schools and shops, transforming it into an urban city.

Israeli troops have raided the Jenin refugee camp many times since the Gaza war began. Markets and schools were once teeming with people, but today the streets have been destroyed by Israeli military bulldozers, mosques and houses have been blown up, and people's belongings are scattered everywhere.

For decades, Jenin has been a stronghold of many militants who say they are fighting against the Israeli occupation.

One of those men is 30-year-old Tareq Abu Mohammed, a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad. When NPR met him in July, before the current fighting, he was standing guard on the side of the road outside a supermarket with another fighter, both carrying automatic weapons.

Nearby was the Damaj neighborhood. This is where the fighters usually hang out, but on the day of NPR's visit, it was eerily quiet. A drone buzzed quietly overhead. Someone had spray-painted the words “The Alley of Death” in Arabic on the walls of the houses. The fighters usually sleep here during the day to prepare for possible nighttime attacks by the Israeli military.

Jenin was already a hotbed of conflict before the Hamas attack from Gaza on October 7.

Several battles broke out here during the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. Although the Palestinian Authority is responsible for overseeing the camps, in reality it is the fighters who call the shots here.

In July 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would launch a new crackdown on militants from these camps.

“If Jenin returns to terrorism, we will return to Jenin,” Netanyahu said.

Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Israeli military has increased its incursions into refugee camps in the West Bank.

Israel describes them as breeding grounds for new militants.

The goal of a fighter

After agreeing to an interview with NPR, Abu Mohammed sat on a stack of soda cans in a grocery store, clutching his gun.

He said he had been in and out of Israeli prisons for about five years.

After October 7, he received a call from Israeli security forces demanding that he turn himself in. Instead, he took out his weapon.

“Whoever sees the injustice that is happening to us in these prisons comes out and continues to fight,” said Abu Mohammed.

He described how there was little food in the prison and how prisoners were beaten and humiliated by Israeli security forces.

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Noor Images for NPR

Abu Mohammed said there was no point in trying to wipe out the militants.

“Kill one of us and thousands will show up. Our morale is high,” he said.

Abu Mohammed said he was ready to die for his country, but he did not really want to do that with his life.

He is a farmer by profession and said he had always wanted a wife, children and a job, but under the occupation the hopelessness was great.

“We all want to live,” he said. “We fight to live, not just to die.”

Teenager with a death wish

On the outskirts of Ramallah, the largest city in the West Bank, there is another refugee camp called Qalandiya. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the Israeli military has raided Qalandiya almost every night.

Ahmad Aslan, 24, lived in Qalandiya until his death on July 24. His family told NPR that on that day, the Israeli military entered their town and soldiers began breaking into and searching homes. Aslan's parents said Israeli soldiers surrounded the camp and he was trapped in his uncle's house with his cousins. They ran to the roof to look down, and that's where, they said, Ahmad was shot.

The Israeli military told NPR that the purpose of the raid was to destroy the home of a man who killed two Israelis at a West Bank gas station.

It was reported that during the attack, soldiers opened fire on people gathered on rooftops and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at them.

One day after his death, Aslan’s cousin published a video Aslan had sent it days before. In it, Aslan shyly introduces himself as “Martyr Ahmad Aslan” and says he wants to die fighting against the Israeli occupation. He points to an empty grave in the Kalandiya cemetery.

Tanya Habjouqa/Noor Images for NPR

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Noor Images for NPR

“God willing, I want my grave to be here,” he says. “Here is Yasser, and here is Ahmad Aslan's grave.”

Yasser was his best friend. According to his family, he too died in an Israeli military attack a few months earlier.

A week later, the Aslan family was still receiving mourners offering their condolences. His mother, Amina Aslan, dressed all in black and keeping a brave face, said he always talked about hoping to die fighting the occupation, a subject that made her angry. She pulled out a text message exchange they had had a few days before his death.

“I told him: I swear, if you keep talking like that, I won't speak to you anymore!” she read aloud. “Go and die! I won't speak to you anymore!”

According to Palestinians in the camp, Aslan is one of a growing number of young men in the West Bank with such a death wish.

The war in the Gaza Strip and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank have made the prospect of a Palestinian state increasingly remote.

Unemployment is high and with no future in sight, hopes are even lower.

Like Aslan, many young men say their only choice is to fight against the Israeli occupation.

Tanya Habjouqa/Noor Images for NPR

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Noor Images for NPR

Some take up arms and join militant groups, others throw stones at Israeli soldiers during raids.

Aslan's mother said that whenever Israeli military forces invaded, her son immediately rushed to the youths on the street.

In Aslan's bedroom, his father Nidal pointed to objects neatly laid out on his son's bunk bed – a baseball cap, lighters, a bloodstained piece of clothing.

He said these were all memorabilia that his son had collected and kept from his friends who were killed in Israeli attacks. He said his son's greatest wish was to be reunited with his friends in heaven.

“Ahmed always said, 'Sure, I have friends, but those who are gone are dear to my heart,'” said Nidal Aslan.

Nuha Musleh contributed reporting from Ramallah and Jenin.

Copyright: NPR