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{"id":51378,"date":"2024-03-22T21:39:42","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T21:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yeswecantv.com\/?p=51378"},"modified":"2024-03-22T21:39:42","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T21:39:42","slug":"fasting-and-funerals-violence-darkens-west-bank-ramadan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yeswecantv.com\/2024\/03\/22\/fasting-and-funerals-violence-darkens-west-bank-ramadan\/","title":{"rendered":"Fasting and funerals: Violence darkens West Bank Ramadan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Normally festive Ramadan nights have become rife with danger in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said hospital director Wisam Bakr, as surging violence casts a long shadow over the Muslim fasting month.<\/p>\n

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His hospital in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has been on the front line of the spike in violence since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war that is still raging in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Instead of breaking the daily Ramadan fast with family and friends, “at night we try not to go outside… because the night is not safe,” said Bakr.<\/p>\n

“At any hour there may be a raid” by Israeli forces, he said.<\/p>\n

As Israel pursues its withering military campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, violence in the West Bank involving Israeli forces or settlers — already rising before the war — has spiked to levels unseen in two decades.<\/p>\n

Since October 7, the Jenin Government Hospital has received 44 people killed and 264 people wounded in Israeli raids, said the director Bakr.<\/p>\n

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Beyond the casualties and damage the frequent military operations have caused, residents of Jenin — a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups — said the violence has translated into quiet streets, subdued celebrations and anxiety.<\/p>\n

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“There are no people” on the streets, said Mohammed Omar, a sweets vendor who has spent his whole life in Jenin refugee camp, one of the West Bank’s most crowded and impoverished, and the site of repeated Israeli raids.<\/p>\n

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– ‘Afraid for my children’ –<\/h2>\n

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According to Omar, the heavy atmosphere of this year’s Ramadan can be felt not just in the immediate aftermath of raids and strikes, but also on relatively quiet days.<\/p>\n

“People are staying in their homes, afraid of the bombing, and they don’t have money to spend,” he said.<\/p>\n

Even if they did, they would likely have some trouble getting around, as many streets have been damaged and some rendered impassable by Israeli bulldozers carrying out demolitions.<\/p>\n

Israel\u00a0routinely\u00a0demolishes\u00a0the\u00a0homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent, while critics say this policy amounts to collective punishment.<\/p>\n

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Bakr said the violence and fear had taken a toll on the hospital’s staff and made for a much more reserved Ramadan.<\/p>\n

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Their work is high-pressure, with casualties often arriving at night and overwhelming emergency medics.<\/p>\n

“Nowadays I hurry up” to get home after the daily fast ends at sunset, “because I’m afraid not only for me, but for my children too,” Bakr said.<\/p>\n

Last week Israeli forces killed two men inside the hospital, in what the military described as “counterterrorism activity” against “armed suspects”.<\/p>\n

In footage stored on Bakr’s phone, one of the men, Mahmud Abu al-Haija, wearing jeans and a black sweater, is gunned down just outside the emergency ward, leaving a bright red streak of blood on the floor as others drag him away.<\/p>\n

The man’s aunt, Farha Abu al-Haija, told AFP that he was “neither a resistance fighter nor a weapon bearer”, and that he had run to the hospital seeking safety.<\/p>\n

Both of the slain men’s bodies were draped in green Hamas flags and adorned with headbands of the militant group’s armed wing for their funeral, AFP footage showed.<\/p>\n

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– ‘Ramadan wasn’t like this’ –<\/h2>\n

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Farha Abu al-Haija said she usually looks forward to Ramadan, but now her family and others’ “are missing a member”.<\/p>\n

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“There is sadness, anger, pain.”<\/p>\n

At least 444 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian health ministry.<\/p>\n

Mokhles Turkman was driving home from work on Wednesday, planning to break the fast with his family, when he heard a loud explosion — a strike Israel said had targeted Palestinian militants.<\/p>\n

As Turkman, 29, learned that the blast had killed three men, he abandoned his original plans and decided instead to join the funeral procession through the streets of Jenin.<\/p>\n

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One of those killed was an Islamic Jihad “commander”, according to the Israeli military, which also accused him of a deadly attack last year that killed an Israeli civilian.<\/p>\n

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“Ramadan was never like this,” Turkman told AFP, as young men fired automatic weapons into the sky and others lowered the three bodies into freshly dug graves.<\/p>\n

He said he attended the funeral “to stand with the people”.<\/p>\n

“We want to stand with their families, let them know that we are all united.”<\/p>\n

Yeswecantv<\/p>\n

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