What it’s like to flee Jenin’s ‘earthquake’ incursion by Israeli forces

With more than 70 percent of the occupied West Bank city ‘annihilated’, some families fled, while others remain trapped.

Standing outside her home in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, Saja Bawaqneh found herself in a familiar spot – the same one where her father had been shot and killed by Israeli forces a few years earlier.

This time, she was waiting for an Israeli army officer to signal that it was time for her to begin walking towards the city’s main hospital after she had been forced out of her home, five days after Israeli soldiers – backed by helicopters and drones – launched a 10-day incursion into Jenin.

It was 1am, and she was with her 60-year-old mother, her two sisters, her pregnant sister-in-law and her young niece and nephew.

Apart from a small bag with the children’s essentials, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs.

It was not the first time the Bawaqneh family home had been raided, nor was it the first time the camp had come under attack. But this latest incursion, which began nearly a week ago and lasted until Israeli forces withdrew on Friday, has been the most intense; dubbed an “earthquake” by the city’s residents.