Future of Jenin Lies in the Rubble

JENIN, West Bank —  Mahmoud Hammad spends his days perched on a 5-foot-high pile of rubble, shaded by a tattered piece of cloth.

It is hot. Bulldozers rumble nearby. The air is filled with a thick dust that carries the cloying smell of rotting flesh.

But it is his home. And he wants it back.

“I have to be here. This is my house. This is where I live. Our family is here. Our history is here,” said Hammad, a 75-year-old whose leathered face makes him look far older.

As the residents of this city’s devastated refugee camp struggle to put their lives back together, a debate has erupted about whether to rebuild.

Palestinian leaders here believe that the camp, once home to 13,000 refugees, should be left in ruins, a reminder to the world of what they label Israeli brutality.

On the other side are the Palestinians who live around the camp’s main square, which was razed by armored Israeli bulldozers. Human Rights Watch says at least 140 apartment buildings were destroyed--about 10% of the camp’s total, including nearly all the structures around the square. About 4,000 people were left homeless.

Of more than a dozen refugees interviewed in recent days, all vehemently rejected the idea of moving away from the camp that has been their home for decades.

For some, rebuilding is a matter of pride; for others, it reflects their attachment to the place. And still others fear becoming rootless again. The camp was founded in 1953 to hold Palestinians who fled their homes during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

“My grandfather was a refugee, my father was a refugee. I’m not going to be a refugee again,” said Mahmoud Khanfer, whose ruined apartment sits in a damaged building a few hundred yards from the central square. “Everyone should return to their same home in the same place.”

Israeli soldiers entered the camp last month in part because a number of suicide bombers who have attacked Israeli civilians had come from the area. The Israelis encountered fierce resistance as they approached the square April 9, losing 13 soldiers in an ambush in the courtyard of an apartment building nearby.

After that, military planners decided that the only safe way to proceed was by using bulldozers and tanks to level the buildings that jammed against each other around the square and that created a dangerous maze of narrow alleys.

It was not the first time that Jenin had been destroyed by an occupying force. In 1938, British soldiers controlling the region flattened much of the city after Palestinians killed the local military governor.

Pictures of shattered buildings from that attack hang on the wall in City Hall, a blurry and distant reminder of the destruction. Mayor Walid abu Mwais wants a more vivid testament to the current devastation.

Mwais is leading the movement to leave the camp as is, a lunar landscape crawling up a hill in painful steps of twisted steel and concrete.

The recent battle in Jenin already has become one of mythic proportions among Palestinians, an Alamo where outnumbered and outgunned fighters stood until the last man against the Israeli army. The Israeli army says 23 of its soldiers were killed in the offensive.

This is combined with the strong belief among Palestinians that a massacre occurred in the camp. Though they have charged that between 300 and 500 civilians were killed during the battle, the Palestinians have so far recovered 53 bodies. A Human Rights Watch report released Friday found that less than two dozen of those were civilians and no evidence that there had been a massacre.

“The horrific destruction is proof for all generations. It’s the only proof we have,” Abu Mwais said. “We want to show how innocent Palestinian civilians made a stand in front of one of the mightiest military powers in the world.”

Abu Mwais wants to build new and better apartments next to the camp, with the help of donor countries.

Meanwhile, many of the Palestinians whose homes were destroyed are living in nearby rented homes paid for by the Palestinian Authority, the municipality and the United Arab Emirates.

The Palestinians reportedly have turned down an offer from an Israeli Arab group to rebuild homes in the camp, saying they want the residents to eventually decide how best to memorialize their suffering.

The Israeli government “wants to hide the crime forever. We must let [the destruction] remain to show everybody what has happened,” said Mohammed abu Gabi, the director of the local government hospital, who favors leaving the camp in ruins.

The decision on whether to rebuild is in the hands of a local committee, according to Abu Mwais. While it debates, however, locals complain that construction is being delayed, prolonging their misery.

“The whole idea is to rebuild what we had before,” said Ahmed Kassan, the assistant director of the camp, who has been left with a pair of bulldozers to clean up the rubble from the invasion.

The residents interviewed Thursday explained that the camp is their home. Over the years, it had become a small city of multistory apartment buildings and other permanent structures.

Hammad, for instance, has been allowed to live in an apartment outside the camp to compensate the 75-year-old for the loss of his home. But he goes there only to sleep. He insists on spending his days on top of his old home with his wife and family.

Outside the camp sits more proof of the refugees’ desire to stay put. There, about 64 pale green United Nations tents sit in a former field. All are empty.

Although the U.N. plans to use the tents to house refugees, locals said they prefer to stay with friends and family in buildings in the camp that remain habitable.

Most of those also insisted that they would not move into permanent homes, even if they were better homes next to the present camp.

“Even if they build us castles on the outside, I don’t want to move. This is our home,” said Abdul Kharim Saadi, 26, who was wounded in the fighting and lost a brother.

Few of the refugees saw the need for a monument. Their suffering, they said, was memorial enough.

“We died to keep it, and we will live to keep it,” said Jamal Tawalbeh, 47. His English limited, he struggled to voice his opposition to the idea of leaving the camp. “Everyone saw what happened. All the world saw the crime on TV.”

Down the street, residents pointed to another memorial. In a converted cafeteria, town residents lined up to pay their respects to the father of Mahmoud Tawalbeh, a Palestinian fighter killed in the city when he was hit by a helicopter rocket. To get into the cafeteria, they had to walk up a small wooden ramp. It was covered with a mud-stained Israeli flag.

On the walls and shops lining the streets, posters have sprung up with pictures of the Palestinian men killed during the fighting--new dead to inspire the city’s youths.

Jenin’s most striking memorial might be felt in coming years, predicted some Palestinians, as members of the younger generation grow up with dreams of becoming gunmen or even suicide bombers.

“In every demolished house, the Israelis have created more volunteers to become martyrs” for the Palestinian cause, said Abu Mwais, the mayor. “The Israelis have destroyed every hope of peace.”