Israel Lays Siege to Jenin Hospitals: On-the-Ground Report From the West Bank

The story below is an eyewitness dispatch from the Israeli siege of the occupied West Bank—the largest Israeli military offensive there since the Second Intifada. When Israeli forces invaded in 2002, the northern city of Jenin was subject to some of the worst violence, with the Israeli military killing dozens of civilians, destroying hundreds of homes, and leaving a quarter of the population homeless.

Jenin is once again the epicenter of a massive military offensive, with hundreds of troops, backed by armored vehicles, fighter jets and drones, raiding the city along with Tubas, Tulkarem, and elsewhere. Many of the same tactics used by the Israeli military in 2002 and since are being repeated in this latest assault: killings, arrests, home demolitions, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and attacks on hospitals.

A few days ago we reached out to Palestinian journalist Mujahed al-Saadi for coverage from the ground on the targeting of Jenin’s hospitals by the Israeli military. A reporter from Jenin who has covered the region since 2012, al-Saadi is no stranger to the dangers of working as a journalist in Palestine. In 2022, he was just a few feet away from his friend and colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, the legendary Al Jazeera correspondent, when an Israeli sniper shot and killed her.

On Monday, as he was reporting this story, al-Saadi was among a group of journalists who came under attack by Israeli forces and bulldozers while they were covering the destruction of a roundabout and surrounding shops in downtown Jenin. The soldiers opened fire on them, injuring two, while the bulldozers drove at them at high speeds, forcing them to take cover inside shops. “It’s quite terrifying to have the bulldozer rush at you, for them to shoot at you,” he told us. “They were trying to prevent us from doing our coverage.” The next day, Palestinian journalists Ayman Al-Nubani and Mohammed Mansour were shot and injured by Israeli forces in the village of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin.

This is also the first story commissioned by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is working with us to coordinate Drop Site News’s coverage of Palestine. We will be bringing you more of these reports in the coming days and weeks from reporters on the ground. If you want to support on-the-ground reporting from Gaza and the West Bank, you can upgrade to a paid subscription or make a tax-deductible donation to Drop Site News here. You can read more about Sharif at the bottom of this article. He’s an exemplary, award-winning journalist and we are honored to be working with him.

Photo: Mujahed al-Saadi in Jenin, West Bank.

Israel Surrounds Jenin Hospitals, Restricting Access, Power, and Water

Story by Mujahed al-Saadi. Translation and editing by Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

JENIN—Outside the Khalil Suleiman Hospital, the largest government hospital in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have parked dozens of armored military vehicles and jeeps, surrounding the hospital and turning the area into a makeshift military encampment. 

“We are encountering grave difficulties in providing the necessary medical services to patients and the wounded,” Wissam Bakr, the director of the hospital, told Drop Site News, “especially after occupation forces destroyed the water and electricity lines the hospital completely depends on to operate its facilities, leading to their complete interruption.”

The hospital, which serves a population of over 300,000 people, has lost more than a third of its daily water supply and is currently relying on a generator for electricity; Bakr warned they only have enough reserves of diesel fuel to last six days. “The ongoing siege threatens the hospital and its facilities and exposes the lives of patients to extreme danger,” he said. Key departments, including those providing kidney dialysis, chemotherapy, intensive care, incubators, and outpatient services, have all been severely curtailed or completely shut down.

Access to or from the hospital can only take place in an ambulance, Bakr said. Soldiers are checking the IDs of everyone trying to pass — patients and medical staff alike — and conducting humiliating searches. Anyone found to be on a list of wanted suspects is immediately detained.

For nearly a week, the Israeli military has been laying siege to hospitals in Jenin and other cities in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, severely restricting access to medical care, targeting medical workers and ambulances, and cutting off water and electricity, as part of a massive military offensive in the occupied West Bank, the largest operation  in the Palestinian territory in over two decades.

The raid in Jenin began on August 28, with Israeli special forces entering the city in civilian vehicles to reach the perimeter of the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of militant resistance to the occupation. Since then, Israeli troops have targeted several hospitals in Jenin by obstructing access and cutting off vital supplies. The move mirrors tactics by the Israeli military in Gaza, where every hospital has been targeted and only a fraction are partially functioning, leaving the health care system in ruins.

Over the past week, armored Israeli bulldozers have torn through Jenin, ripping up roads, tearing down shops and markets, and destroying critical infrastructure. According to the Jenin municipality, more than 70% of Jenin’s streets have been bulldozed; 20 kilometers of water and sewage networks, communication and electric cables have been destroyed; and water has been cut off from 80% of the city, including the entire refugee camp where a curfew has been imposed, preventing most residents from entering or leaving.

Despite the ongoing assault, Jenin municipality crews are working to repair and restore the main water line that leads to the Khalil Suleiman Hospital — also known as Jenin Government Hospital — as well as other parts of the city in an attempt to restore basic services. 

Medical staff and civilians at an Israeli military checkpoint in front of the Khalil Suleiman Hospital in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. Photos by Mujahed al-Saadi.

In the meantime, Khalil Suleiman Hospital is transferring or redirecting patients to medical facilities—but because other hospitals in Jenin are also under sustained attack, patients must be transported outside of Jenin to receive medical care. 

At the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin, all the main roads and entrances leading to the hospital have been blocked with mounds of earth and ripped up concrete by Israeli bulldozers. Ibn Sina hospital was the target of a raid in January by Israeli soldiers and members of its security service, Shin Bet, who stormed the hospital disguised as medical staff and killed three Palestinian men in shocking scenes that were captured on closed-circuit video.

Staff at another hospital in Jenin, the Al-Amal hospital, have been targeted by Israeli forces in the field and prevented from treating the wounded. Ahmed Hamdan, a nurse who has been working as head of the operations department at Al-Amal for 16 years says soldiers fired warning shots at him several times with live ammunition to prevent him from accessing wounded Palestinians in an eastern neighborhood of the city. Hamdan also said an EMS worker at the hospital was recently detained as he was transporting a patient from Jenin to Ramallah and beaten severely by Israeli soldiers who held him for seven hours and destroyed the ambulance. “Despite the dangers and arbitrary measures taken by the occupation, such as targeting ambulances with bullets and beating paramedics, they continue their work,” Hamdan said.

The Palestine Red Crescent issued a statement on Monday expressing its “deep concern and disappointment” with Israeli authorities’ for “actively impeding PRCS medical missions’ access to casualties and patients across various areas in the city, mainly in the Jenin Refugee Camp.” The group said Israeli troops have “directly targeted” ambulances, injuring two medical workers and a volunteer doctor. “Our teams have been prevented from transporting various casualties, patients and elderly suffering from chronic diseases, and women in labor. The further marginalization of already vulnerable communities renders the area uninhabitable.”

Those who have been able to access the hospital can find themselves trapped there. Remah al-Dami, a mother of three from the Jenin refugee camp, arrived at the Khalil Suleiman Hospital for an appointment for two of her children last week, shortly before the massive Israeli incursion. Since then, she has been prevented by Israeli forces from returning to her home in the al-Hawashin neighborhood in the camp despite several attempts. She has been forced to live in the hospital for the past week with two of her children, unable to be with her five-month-old son and with little communication as a result of power and internet outages. “These are the hardest days of my life,” she told Drop Site. “This is the first time I have been away from my children. I don’t know who to tell, who to turn to. I want my son.”

In response to questions, the Israeli military said hospitals in Jenin “continue to operate as usual.”

Israeli troops have also been forcibly displacing residents from their homes at gunpoint, with some areas in the camp having been almost entirely emptied, including Saha, New Camp, and Joret al-Dahab. Normally a bustling, crowded city, Jenin’s streets are now empty, with residents staying indoors for safety. The sounds of explosions and gunfire fill the streets amid the steady rumble of the bulldozers. Dozens of residents have been arrested from the street or in house raids.

Among those detained was Ayman Abed, a Palestinian resident of Kafr Dan, a village just northwest of the city. Israeli soldiers raided his house at dawn on Monday and severely beat him inside the house before he was taken into custody, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Drop Site News. Shortly afterwards, Israeli troops handed Abed’s lifeless body to health authorities in Jenin. Bakr, the director of the Khalil Suleiman Hospital, said Abed’s body bore signs of torture. The Israeli military ignored questions about why his body bore signs of torture and said that Abed “experienced a cardiac event” while in custody and that the incident is under review.

At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and 130 injured in the occupied West Bank since the latest military operation began last week. Since October, over 685 have been killed and 5,700 wounded.

* This story was updated to include comments from the Israeli military received after publication.

Mujahed al-Saadi is a journalist from Jenin who has covered the northern area of the occupied West Bank since 2012. He has reported for a number of print outlets in the region and internationally and worked as a producer for several television programs.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous has reported from across the Arab world, including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, and Algeria, as well from across the United States and internationally. He received a George Polk Award for his investigation into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an Emmy award for his coverage of the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban, and an Izzy Award for his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. His latest documentary, “The Night Won’t End” investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war. Sharif is also a producer of the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest).