© Al Tafawk CentreChild with ripped and destroyed books inside Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin. Damage was done during a raid on May 15,2021, during Gaza conflict.
The centre, which is run by local volunteers, is the only one of its kind in the camp, which hosts around 14,000 Palestinian refugees made homeless by the establishment of Israel in 1948. It provides around 120 children aged three to 16 with play, education and food, as well as a warm welcome.
It is the only source of amusement they have to turn to in the bleak surroundings of the camp, which in 2002 during the Second Intifada lost dozens of residents in an Israeli army massacre and more than 400 homes in a brutal bulldozing campaign in yet another act of Israeli collective punishment of Palestinian civilians. The camp has been subjected to regular military incursions ever since.
Created in 2010, Al-Tafawk Children's Centre largely managed to escape the attention of the Israeli military - that is, until recently. The first signs that the Israeli army had its eye on the centre came in January, when its manager was detained for 24 hours and severely traumatised.
Then in the wake of the protests in occupied Jerusalem over the Israeli attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the murderous bombardment of Gaza, the Israeli forces stepped up their reign of terror across historic Palestine. It extended to the occupied West Bank as well, where more than 25 Palestinians were killed by the end of May. In Jenin, like in other Palestinian cities, demonstrations were held against the Israeli violence.
© Al-Tafawk Centre.Israeli soldiers patrolling Jenin Refugee Camp in occupied West Bank, May 2021, during Gaza conflict.
One witness said:
"Last night they raided the centre. First, they started to shoot from outside the centre. Then they blew up the front door and entered the centre. They threw everything around. Damaging everything of value."Apart from damaging furniture and equipment, the soldiers deliberately destroyed the centre's infrastructure, making the building unsafe and unusable. They destroyed the water pipes and taps, cutting off its water supply, wrecked the electricity safety box, cutting off electricity, damaged the stairs and the doors, forcing off the handles. In all, the damage amounts to thousands of dollars.
© Al Tafawk Children’s CentreIsraeli soldiers bombed a doorway at the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin, May 15, 2021, during Gaza conflict.
© Al Tafawk Children’s CentreIsraeli soldiers damaged stairway at the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin, May 15, 2021, during Gaza conflict.
© Al Tafawk Children’s CentrIsraeli soldiers destroyed a plumbing fixture at the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin, May 15, 2021, during Gaza conflict.
This attitude of total racist contempt for Palestinian children - the conviction that they do not need education since they are going to die soon, anyway - reminds me, as someone who is Jewish, of the attitude of the Nazis towards Jewish children.
© Al Tafawk CentrePalestinian seeks to repair damage to electrical boxes and feed destroyed by Israeli soldiers in Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin, during a raid on May 15, 2021, during Gaza conflict.
But a displaced and traumatised population that is marked for complete ethnic cleansing cannot be allowed to put down roots and experience normality. It must be kept on edge at all times, regularly dispossessed and oppressed, so that it ceases to lay claim to its own land.
© Al Tafawk CentreIsraeli soldiers shot bullets into walls at Al Tafawk Children’s Centre in Jenin, during a raid on May 15,2021, during Gaza conflict.
The destruction of Al-Tafawk Children's Centre - as well as of many other civilian buildings - gives the lie to Israel's assertion that it is engaged in self-defence. It is a lie that fewer and fewer people in the West are prepared to buy when the evidence of Israel's genocidal intent is so clear.
As we started to fundraise to repair the centre and open it up for refugee children again, I decided to write to Tzipi Hotovely, the far-right Israeli ambassador to London, demanding that Israel pays for the damage and for compensation for the children who have been traumatised by what has taken place. I did not get an answer.
If you, dear reader, would you to contribute, you can do it here. You can also help by spreading the word and putting pressure on politicians in your country to stop turning a blind eye to Israeli crimes against the Palestinians and take action. It is high time that Israel is held responsible for its myriad violations of international law, including the murder, detention and dispossession of Palestinian children, and the attacks on civilian homes and infrastructure.
This op-ed appeared today in Al Jazeera. We are republishing it with permission, but also to add many photographs of the shocking raid on the Al-Tafawk Children's Centre in Jenin, six weeks ago, provided by the Centre.
Reader Comments
However, when they go mano a mano against Hamas or Hezbollah, the IDF show themselves to be a bunch of mama's boys.
So why is that? My best guess is that 'they' (whoever the f they are) wish it to go by slower that one's typical prole does not notice the role of what would become IsRaHell.
And also, I fear, that apparently its subjects (such as "Germany is making every effort to buy up the Arabs") have inspired this speed-up so that we poor proles might, as Twain said, remain in darkness - check it out.
R.C.