In Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces killed resistance fighter Adham Jabareen. When eyewitness Jawad Bawaqneh tried to save him, he was also shot and killed by Israeli forces.
Israel assassinated two Palestinian resistance fighters in Jenin today, and a third martyr succumbed to wounds sustained two weeks ago, bringing the total number of Palestinian martyrs in 2023 to 12.
The year 2022 was unlike any other we have witnessed in over a decade as Palestinian resistance was back on the agenda.
Operation Break the Wave has been the Israeli response. The counterinsurgency campaign was launched in late February and had a singular purpose: to break the back of a newly-emerging phenomenon of armed Palestinian resistance.
Mondoweiss has compiled a timeline to contextualize and better understand this pivotal moment in Palestinian history, which continues to unfold before our eyes.
Israeli forces killed Jana Zakarneh, 16, during a search-and-arrest operation in the West Bank city of Jenin. Zakarneh was standing on the roof of her family’s home near the Israeli invasion when she was shot with a single bullet to the head, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Zakarneh is the 15th minor to be killed in Jenin since the start of the year and the 17th Palestinian woman or girl to be killed in 2022. This year, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank has hit record numbers — the highest since the UN began documenting such killings in 2005.
In the last two days Israeli forces have killed five Palestinians, including three resistance fighters.
On Thursday, December 8, Israeli forces invaded various towns in the Jenin governorate, north of Jerusalem, killing Atta Shalabi, 46, Sidqi Zakarneh, 29, and Tareq Al-Damaj, 29. The day before on Wednesday Mujahed Najjar Hamed, 32, was shot and killed on after a days-long manhunt for the resistance fighter, who is from the village of Silwad.
An eyewitness described the Jenin killings as “a true massacre” to local reporters.
Ra’afat Al-Issa was killed by Israeli soldiers as he travelled through a breach in the apartheid wall on his way to work. He is now known as the “martyr of daily bread.”
Welcome to the first in our new series, the West Bank Dispatch. This newsletter will cover the main developments you need to know about Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler-colonialism in the occupied West Bank. Each week we’ll bring you key developments, analysis from our Palestine news team, and insight into what Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid in the West Bank are reading and talking about.
Operation Break the Wave continues to take the lives of Palestinian resistance fighters, and now the campaign of extra-judicial assassination has expanded from Nablus to Jenin.
We are currently seeing an unprecedented moment of Palestinian resistance across the West Bank. It’s too early to tell where events will lead — whether it’s the historic turning point or the last gasp of protest before something even worse — but what’s certain is that Palestinians are on the precipice of returning to a state of refusal, if not full-fledged resistance, to the settler-colonial reality some would have them ignore. The current moment will ultimately be decided by militant mass support and the expansion of resistance activity to the rest of the West Bank.
Samoudi’s death comes amidst heightened escalations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as Israeli forces continue to crack down on Palestinian armed resistance fighters, conducting near nightly, deadly raids into Palestinian towns, cities, and refugee camps.