Israeli forces aim to kill: A doctor’s eyewitness account from Jenin

We are facing great difficulty at the moment. Israeli aggression against Palestinians has intensified in Jenin since Israel began bombing Gaza on October 7.

The Jenin Governmental Hospital, of which I’m the director, is near the Jenin refugee camp. Every time Israel forces raid the camp they also encircle the hospital.

Recently they created a barrier around the hospital with military vehicles. In the interior yard of the hospital and on the main road that leads to the hospital, some were deliberately positioned so as to prevent ambulances from reaching the hospital itself.

If the forces ever allowed an ambulance to leave the hospital, they would first stop it and inspect it fully – on the inside and outside. They were also searching staff and the wounded in the ambulance.

Ambulances need “permission” from Israeli forces to go to and from the hospital, when in fact – in accordance with international law – they have a right. Israeli forces are not honouring that, much less the urgent medical needs of Palestinians on board the ambulances.

The forces, however, have been particularly focused on the wounded. They’ve been keen on either arresting them or preventing them from receiving any life-saving services, such as at a location away from the hospital.

This is happening every day now. Israeli soldiers have laid siege to the hospital that makes it difficult for anyone to reach it.

Additionally, we’re experiencing the constant danger of Israeli soldiers firing at hospitals. Bullets are coming through the windows.

On more than one occasion Israel forces hit the front of the hospital with rockets. This started before October 7 actually, several months ago.

The grounds of the hospital are hardly safer. There’s a sniper nearby, stationed by a large building. During a recent raid, one of the hospital employees was working on the grounds and then suddenly shot in the head by Israeli forces.

He died.

This is all documented, recorded by the hospital’s camera. It’s available for the international community to see.

The victims are mostly young men but that includes teenagers too. Some victims are children, including four boys recently killed: Sharif Ahmad Abdulrahim Shaer, 16; Yazan Majdi Munir Akoub, 14; Basel Suleiman Tawfiq Abu Al Wafa, 15; Samer Othman Al Ghoul, 8.

Yesterday we received a woman at the hospital who is 46-years-old. She was in her house when a soldier entered it. I believe Israeli forces may have used an explosive, a bomb, to open the door. Shrapnel pierced her head and she’s in critical condition now, being treated at another hospital.

The world should know the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank are under siege. Understandably there’s a major focus at the moment on what’s happening in Gaza – atrocities committed by Israeli forces against defenseless children, women, the elderly.

The focus I believe should also extend to what’s happening to us in the occupied West Bank.

Daily we are experiencing the killing of our children and the Israeli raids are continuous, for at least two years now. They destroy infrastructure, destroy roads, everything. The number of those who’ve sustained life-threatening injuries keeps mounting. Several have acquired permanent disabilities on account of the injuries.

The international community should exert necessary pressure to ensure Israeli soldiers do not indiscriminately harm. Presently they show no restraint. They are extremely aggressive.

And of course there’s the hospitals themselves. They have no protections from the violence of Israeli forces. The same protections are lacking for ambulances and medical staff.

Threats to our safety are further heightened when we transfer our staff between hospitals or when staff is simply outside the hospital building. Israeli soldiers force them onto the ground. They shoot and shout at them. These are people who pose no danger whatsoever.

Why are they shooting them?

Admittedly, young people or children – resisting the illegal Israeli occupation of West Bank – have thrown stones at the soldiers. The response is completely disproportionate; the soldiers shoot them in the head or chest.

They aim strictly to kill.

Palestinians in the West Bank don’t have rights equal to Israelis. It’s like we’re entitled to nothing. We’re just terrorised by a big army with big weapons. We want the same rights that all other free people have, whether that means having sovereignty over a state of our own or being able to move in and outside the West Bank – minus harassment, abuse, or being killed by Israeli forces.

It is difficult for us to go to other cities because there are Israeli settler vigilantes along the main roads. Like the Israeli military, they prevent ambulances from reaching critically wounded Palestinians, the media from documenting Israeli violence, Palestinian civilians from simply living in peace.

The level of violence here is unimaginable. What’s happening in Gaza is of course much worse. Nothing compares to that. But, as in Gaza, there’s a genocide happening in West Bank and taking cover is near impossible. Bulldozers are tearing up the roads, rendering them wholly unusable.

There’s horror everywhere we look. It’s disgusting that anyone is forced to live like this.

(As told to Paul Salvatori, a Senior Producer at TRT World)