JENIN: Israel said on Sunday its forces would remain for many months in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, after tens of thousands of Palestinians living there have been displaced by an intensifying military operation.
The military began a major raid against Palestinian militants in the West Bank’s north a month ago, just after a truce went into effect in the Gaza Strip, a separate Palestinian territory.
The West Bank offensive has gradually expanded, spanning multiple refugee camps near the cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.
Three of the camps, Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams, “are now empty of residents,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
He put the number of displaced Palestinians at 40,000, the same figure provided by the United Nations which said the offensive has so far killed at least 51 Palestinians including seven children, and three Israeli soldiers.
Katz said he had instructed troops “to prepare for a prolonged presence in the cleared camps for the coming year and to prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism.”
Also on Sunday, Israel’s military announced tank deployments in Jenin, where it was “expanding” operations.
This is the first time tanks have operated in the West Bank since the end of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2005.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a military ceremony on Sunday, said the deployment showed that “we are fighting terror with all means, everywhere.”
Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence at security and risk management consultancy Le Beck International, told AFP there was “no real military logic to using tanks in the West Bank at this stage.”
“Unless it is to send a message, and potentially to stay more permanently in areas that have been targeted by Israeli raids,” he added.
AFPTV footage showed Israeli tanks advancing and bulldozers operating in the Jenin area on Sunday.
“The occupation’s army destroyed Palestinian shops and infrastructure,” said Jenin resident Fayez Al-Sayyed.
“This is a way to execute their policy of displacing the Palestinian people from their land,” he told AFP.
“We are here, and we will not leave our country," he added.
Analyst Horowitz said “the Israeli government has been devoting a lot more attention to the West Bank” since a shaky ceasefire deal with Hamas group took hold in Gaza on January 19.
In both Tulkarem and Jenin, the Israeli army has demolished dozens of homes with explosives, opening up new access routes into the densely built camps.
Armored bulldozers have wreaked havoc, upturning tarmac, cutting water pipes, and tearing down roadside facades.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 900 Palestinians, including many militants, in the territory since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 32 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the territory over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel says army to stay in evacuated West Bank camps for ‘coming year’
https://arab.news/4d2w8
Israel says army to stay in evacuated West Bank camps for ‘coming year’
- Israeli military operations in the West Bank displaced 40,000 Palestinians
- Israel deployed tanks in Jenin for the first time since the end of the second Palestinian intifada
Sites that remind Syrians of Assad brutality become sets for TV series
- Show to be aired in February during Ramadan, primetime viewing in the Arab world
DAMASCUS: At a Damascus air base once off-limits under Bashar Assad, a crew films a TV series about the final months of the ousted leader’s rule as seen through the eyes of a Syrian family.
“It’s hard to believe we’re filming here,” director Mohamad Abdul Aziz said from the Mazzeh base, which was once also a notorious detention center run by Assad’s air force intelligence branch, known for its terrible cruelty.
The site in the capital’s southwestern suburbs “used to be a symbol of military power. Now we are making a show about the fall of that power,” he said.
Assad fled to Russia as an opposition-led offensive closed in on Damascus, taking it without a fight on Dec. 8 last year after nearly 14 years of civil war and half a century of Assad dynasty rule.
The scene at the Mazzeh base depicts the escape of a figure close to Assad, and is set to feature in “The King’s Family” filmed in high-security locations once feared by regular Syrians.
The series is to be aired in February during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, primetime viewing in the Arab world, when channels and outlets vie for the attention of eager audiences.
Dozens of actors, directors and other show business figures who were opposed to Assad have returned to Syria since his ouster, giving the local industry a major boost, while other series have also chosen to film at former military or security sites.
“It’s a strange feeling ... The places where Syria used to be ruled from have been transformed” into creative spaces, Abdul Aziz said.
Elsewhere in Damascus, his cameras and crew now fill offices at the former military intelligence facility known as Palestine Branch, where detainees once underwent interrogation so brutal that some never came out alive.
“Palestine Branch was one of the pillars of the security apparatus — just mentioning its name caused terror,” Abdul Aziz said of the facility, known for torture and abuse.
Outside among charred vehicles, explosions and other special effects, the team was recreating a scene depicting “the release of detainees when the security services collapsed,” he said.
Thousands of detainees were freed when jails were thrown open as Assad fell last year, and desperate Syrians converged on the facilities in search of loved ones who disappeared into the prison system, thousands of whom are still missing.
Assad’s luxurious, high-security residence, which was stormed and looted after he fled to Russia, is also part of the new series.
Abdul Aziz said he filmed a fight scene involving more than 150 people and gunfire in front of the residence in Damascus’s upscale Malki district.
“This was impossible to do before,” he said.
The series’ scriptwriter Maan Sakbani, 35, expressed cautious relief that the days of full-blown censorship under Assad were over.
The new authorities’ Information Ministry still reviews scripts but the censor’s comments on “The King’s Family” were very minor, he said from a traditional Damascus house where the team was discussing the order of scenes.
Sakbani said he was uncertain how long the relative freedom would last, and was waiting to see the reaction to the Ramadan productions once they were aired.
Several other series inspired by the Assad era are also planned for release at that time, including “Enemy Syrians,” which depicts citizens living under the eyes of the security services.
Another, “Going Out to the Well,” directed by Mohammed Lutfi and featuring several prominent Syrian actors, is about deadly prison riots in the infamous Saydnaya facility in 2008.
Rights group Amnesty International had called the facility a “human slaughterhouse.”
“The show was written more than two years ago and we intended to film it before Assad’s fall,” Lutfi said.
But several actors feared the former authorities’ reaction and they were unable to find a suitable location since filming in Syria was impossible.
Now, they plan to film on site.
“The new authorities welcomed the project and provided extensive logistical support and facilities for filming inside Saydnaya prison,” Lutfi said.
As a result, it will be possible “to convey the prisoners’ suffering and the regime’s practices — from the inside the actual location,” he said.
