STORY: Palestinian families displaced in Israel's Jenin raid agonize over unknown fate
DATELINE: July 7, 2023
LENGTH: 00:02:54
LOCATION: Gaza
CATEGORY: SOCIETY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Jenin
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): OM HUSSAIN DIBABA, Jenin resident
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): MOHAMMED SAAFINE, Jenin resident
4. various of destructed houses in Jenin
5. SOUNDBITE 3 (Arabic): SALMA ABBAS, Jenin resident
6. various of destructed houses in Jenin

STORYLINE:

Engulfed by sadness, Om Hussain Dibaba, an elderly Palestinian woman, and the other nine members of her family sit in one of the courtyards of a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin, without knowing their fate.

"Without any prior alarm, my family and I became displaced," the 62-year-old woman spoke to Xinhua as she clung to two of her grandchildren's hands, referring to the clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in the city that have stripped her family of any chance to straighten their lives out.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): OM HUSSAIN DIBABA, Jenin resident
"The Israelis told us to get out of the houses because they want to bomb the 'terrorists'. When they entered my house, they asked if there were armed men. I told them that there were only me and the children. The army wants the militants, but they did not find any of them. The operation launched by the army failed."

On Monday, the Israeli army launched a large-scale military offensive on the Jenin refugee camp, which was described by many as the most violent in the West Bank in 20 years, to fight the Palestinian militants in the territory, killing at least 10 Palestinians and wounding more than 100 others.
   
The Israeli army allegedly asked some Palestinian families to evacuate their houses prior to attacks in an attempt to avoid civilian casualties.
   
Om Hussain was among those who were put in a race against time when she received an alarm call demanding she evacuate her house just a few minutes before the attack.
   
Hastily, Om Hussain raced dozens of her neighbors to flee their houses, without having the luxury of carrying along any of their personal belongings or identity documents, as she complained to Xinhua.
   
"Overnight, we were forced to experience a terrifying trip as the Israeli army shot heavy gunfire and gas canisters over our heads, while we couldn't move easily as roads were destroyed by the army," the mother of three told Xinhua.
   
What made matters worse was that neither she nor her neighbors could be sure they would survive the journey.

"From time to time, we were forced to stop and waited for long time on the streets as the Israelis targeted all moving people. Later, ambulances transferred us to the hospital to shelter us," the grieved woman recalled.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): MOHAMMED SAAFINE, Jenin resident
"I heard a lot of rockets and shelling, and after that they took us out of the house and destroyed all its contents, leaving nothing in it intact, even the bedroom, which they destroyed."

SOUNDBITE 3 (Arabic): SALMA ABBAS, Jenin resident
"When the army came, we didn't want to go out, but then they asked us to go out, so we fled in the middle of the night under the sound of children's screams and while the electricity was cut off."

Mahdia Khrisha, another Jenin-based woman, was also told to evacuate her house as soon as possible just ahead of the Israeli bombing.     

"An ambulance worker told us that the army would bomb my uncle's house ... because our houses are close to each other, so all residents in our camp have to evacuate and find another safer place," the 39-year-old mother of four told Xinhua.

"History repeats itself. The high number of people I met during our escape reminded me of the Nakba Day when our old families fled from their lands to avoid the Israeli crimes against them," Mahdia said.

The Nakba Day is observed annually on May 15 by Palestinians to remember the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes after the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Om Hussain and Mahdia were among 3,000 Palestinians who fled from their houses to local hospitals, the headquarters of Jenin municipality, and the facilities belonging to the Palestinian Authority during the Israeli raid, according to Ahmed Jibril, a spokesperson of the Palestinian Red Cross in Jenin.

"We faced difficulty in the process of evacuating the citizens because of the presence of the Israeli occupation army at the entrances to the camp, and it also impedes the movement of ambulances that transport the elderly and the sick," Jibril told Xinhua.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Gaza.
(XHTV)