Israel Will Not Defeat The Spirit of Jabalia

“Jabalia camp will not fall.” This is just one phrase the steadfast Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp wrote on the walls of the houses destroyed by the Israeli war machine over a year of genocide. They insist on staying on their refusal to be displaced under the guns of a third military operation that is today continued relentlessly.

Artillery shells are raining down on the camp from all sides. Jabalia residents are rushing with whatever luggage they can carry, or rather the remnants of their belongings which they lost over the course of a year of genocide, searching for a safe place and shelter that is nowhere to be found.

Gunpowder

Amidst the pain, the camp’s steadfast residents breathe air saturated with gunpowder from rockets and shells but they remain, refusing to submit to forced evacuation orders and attempt to displace them. They say the Israeli occupation will not drive them off the land.

Yousef Abu Qamar insists on staying in the northern Gaza Strip, refusing to leave the camp. He is currently residing in a tent he set up in one of the shelters and says he will not leave Jabalia even if it costs him his life, despite losing his home and dozens of relatives during this ongoing genocidal war on the Strip.

Abu Qamar is staying inside a displacement tent with his wife and children in one of the UNRWA schools, along with hundreds of residents of Jabalia camp who refuse to leave, despite the dangers to their lives and Israeli siege.

He adds the occupation is doing its military best to force them to move to the southern Gaza Strip after a year of steadfastness in the north, “despite the great destruction that befell the camp and our loss of our homes and livelihoods, and the famine  we lived under for months and that is being repeated today.”

No safe areas

Abu Qamar says the Israeli occupation army’s call for displacement as an attempt to delude the camp residents into believing there are safe areas in the southern Gaza Strip but the reality is the opposite, as they bombed the tents of the displaced in Mawasi Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah, and invaded Rafah, which they claimed was a “safe humanitarian area”.

“If we must die, let us die in the camp that has always embraced us in which we have lived, and which has lived in us. Where do we go amidst the devastation that is everywhere? What we rejected at the beginning of the war, we will not accept now,” he added.

On 6 October, 2024, the Israeli army announced the start of a ground military operation in Jabalia, under the pretext of preventing the Palestinian resistance from regaining its strength in the area, hours after the start of a fierce attack on the eastern and western areas of the northern Gaza Strip, including Jabalia and the most violent since last May.

This is the third ground operation carried out by the Israeli occupation army in the Jabalia camp since 7 October, 2023, where hundreds were killed and injured in aerial and artillery bombardment and gunfire inside the camp, in addition to the destruction and burning of hundreds of homes.

Generals’ Pan

With the launch of the new military operation the occupation army began displacing Palestinians from three towns in north Gaza in a move that appears to be an undeclared implementation of what the media has called the “Generals’ Plan,” to empty the northern Gaza Strip and impose a strict siege on it in preparation for settlement with Israeli colonialists.

The “Generals’ Plan” was unveiled in early September, and calls for displacing all Palestinians from the northern Gaza in a week before imposing a siege on the area and giving Palestinian fighters there the choice of death or surrender.

The Israeli government has not announced its adoption of the plan, but the KAN official Broadcasting Channel reported in September that the Ministerial Cabinet for Political and Security Affairs is discussing this plan.

Ghazi Al-Kafarna shares the insistence of his other camp residents to remain in his home despite the destruction of large parts of it. He believes leaving the camp will not provide him with safety or assistance, saying it will not solve the crisis but increase their suffering.

He says that leaving the northern Gaza Strip to the south means death, and not necessarily by missiles. Since the beginning of the war, we have witnessed various forms of death from diseases, epidemics and water pollution, stressing he does not trust the “unsafe” displacement paths determined by the occupation army and the fact the south is not prepared to receive new numbers of displaced people.

Al-Kafarna adds: “It is true we are suffering from near-famine due to the severe shortage of food and lack of vegetables, even if their prices are astronomical, but going to the south means living in tents we do not know for how long plus the south is not prepared to receive new displaced people.”

‘We are staying’

He believes the occupation army relies on the principle of putting military pressure on the Jabalia residents to force them to flee under intense firepower. He pointed out however, this policy has proven its failure, and proof of that is the insistence of people of staying even if they are wrecked.

Thousands of residents of northern Gaza have clung to their homes and brushed aside displaced to the south since 14 October, 2023, when the occupation army issued the first forced evacuation order to them.

Of the 1.2 million people who used to live in the Gaza and North Governorates, there are currently about 700,000 people who have refused to be displaced to the southern Gaza Strip, according to official Palestinian data.

Jabalia Camp has always represented the palm facing the Israeli needle since the years of the first Intifada in 1978. It was the spark that ignited all of the Palestinian territories and erupted to mobilize against occupation.

Days of Rage

In the year 2000 Al-Aqsa Intifada Jabalia Camp witnessed fierce battles, including the “Days of Rage” battle in 2004, in which the enemy tried to storm the camp, but withdrew in defeat after a 17-day battle. This is the battle in which Sheikh Nizar led the fighters to the front lines through his historic statement: “They [Israeli troops] will not enter our camp, meaning they will not enter our camp.”

Today, a year after the Al-Aqsa Flood and attempts to break the resistance in Jabalia, the camp, covering ​​one-and-a-half square kilometers, returns like a phoenix from the ashes to resist a third Israeli military encroachment to remove its residents.

In its first ground attack on the camp on 27 October, 2023, the occupation forces launched thousands of raids and opened the gates of hell with “preliminary fire” on the stubborn camp, most of whose residents refused to leave.

On 12 May, 2024, the occupation army launched a violent attack on Jabalia from several axes, and sent three armored battalions to carry out the mission it had always failed at, thinking that after all these months of crushing and starvation, the camp would kneel and raise the white flag.

Powerful, steadfast

But what happened was that stubborn Jabalia proved once again it was the most powerful and steadfast front in this battle, to the point that the squadrons of helicopters that came to evacuate the dead and wounded soldiers hovered profusely over the skies of the camp throughout those days.

This legendary steadfastness was not built on a sea of ​​sand. Since its inception in 1948 by refugees who sought refuge there after the Nakba, it has been a focal area for the fedayeen who joined the training camps of the “Palestinian Liberation Army” in the 1960s, as hundreds of young men from Jabalia camp rushed to join and participated in fedayeen operations inside the armistice line and the battles of the June 1967 war, as confirmed by Saeed Ziyad, researcher in Palestinian affairs.

The Arab defeat and the occupation of all of Palestine and a large part of the Arab lands did not deter those fedayeen from resisting and joining the new resistance groups that kept the enemy awake and inflicted heavy losses on it. The peak of these operations was between 1968 and 1972, when the then Israeli Minister of the Occupation Army, Ariel Sharon, carried out large-scale targeting on the fedayeen, and demolished a large number of homes in the camp to attempt to crush the armed resistance against the occupation where the enemy tried to raze the camp and displace its people through a large-scale operation that lasted for four years, and ended in abject failure.

Today, the stubborn camp is reformulating its resistance identity well-known in past decades, so that its heirs today continue to write “Long live the camp…long live the invincible spirit of Jabalia.”

This article was translated/edited from the Palestine Information Center.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Trump: Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is The First of Many’

Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent and a US green card holder, is facing deportation after being arrested by federal immigration officials on March 8.

A leader of student protests at Columbia University, Khalil’s arrest has been described by US President Donald Trump as the “first of many” as his administration ramps up its crackdown on campus opposition to the Gaza war. But a federal judge has temporarily halted the 30-year-old’s expulsion from the US.

As a legal permanent resident, Khalil was detained without a warrant by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials as he and his wife were returning to their Columbia University-owned apartment in upper Manhattan.

The agents initially claimed his student visa had been revoked, but after Khalil’s wife provided proof of his green card status, they stated that his green card was also being revoked and took him into custody.

DHS justified Khalil’s arrest by citing his involvement in “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation,” under the framework of Trump’s executive orders aimed at “prohibiting anti-Semitism.” 

“Khalil’s case has been the most publicly known case of an arrest by DHS officials of a pro-Palestine protester from a college campus or a university campus” said Meghnad Bose, a Delacorte Fellow at the Columbia Journalism Review, and one of the journalists who broke the news of the arrest.

A recent graduate from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Khalil was a prominent figure during the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupations.

He acted as a spokesperson and negotiator for demonstrators who condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza and advocated for the institution to sever financial ties with Israel and companies supporting the genocide.

Recently, Khalil was among the pro-Palestinian activists investigated by a new disciplinary body at Columbia University established to address harassment and discrimination complaints. 

Days before his arrest, an online campaign targeting Khalil was launched by pro-Israeli groups and individuals, including Columbia Business School professor Shai Davidai, who called for his arrest and deportation.

These posts tagged U.S. officials such as President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“That is definitely a suspicious turn of events. Was the DHS conducting its own investigation into Khalil prior to all of this? Or were they just acting on cue based on what these pro-Israel groups and individuals posted online?” Bose said.

Initially believed to be in a New Jersey facility, Khalil was confirmed to be at LaSalle Detention Centre in Louisiana on March 10. On the same day, Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled that Khalil cannot be removed from the US without court approval.

The actions against Khalil coincided with the Trump administration’s decision to cancel around $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, citing the “failure to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment.” 

The university’s response to Khalil’s arrest has been criticised for its lack of transparency and action.

The day before the arrest, Khalil emailed Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong: “Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanising doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labelled me a security threat and called for my deportation.”

He continued, “I have not been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

Reports surfaced of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents being spotted on campus throughout the week of the arrest. In response, Columbia University issued a memo over the weekend advising faculty and staff not to interfere in “exigent circumstances” when ICE agents seek access to university buildings or individuals without a warrant.

Khalil’s arrest has sparked a wave of protests on campus, with students, including Jewish ones, rallying in opposition to DHS’s actions, demanding that ICE be removed from university premises. 

“Especially vulnerable are the international students, because many of them feel that if they post on social media now, if they attend a protest, they might end up being deported,” Bose said, raising concerns about the right to protest within university communities.

Khalil’s arrest also seems to be part of a broader political strategy targeting universities. 

“This is happening specifically to someone who is Palestinian and who stood up for the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. So this is not just a cause agnostic free speech issue,” he added.

Donald Trump has frequently targeted Columbia University for its students’ advocacy for Palestinian rights in Gaza, including during his electoral campaign.

“The Gaza Solidarity encampment at Columbia inspired similar encampments not just across the United States, but across the world,” he said.

“It seems rather clear that they [the Trump administration] want to make Columbia [an] example for communities of students and faculty around the country, that even an Ivy League University in New York City will not be spared the wrath of the American government for having protested against the policies of the American government as it relates to Israel.”

This report is written by Francesca Maria Lorenzini for the Jordan Times

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Bahrain Revives Its Pearling Legacy

Bahrain, with its shallow waters and rich oyster beds, has long been synonymous with pearls, which formed the backbone of the island nation’s economy for thousands of years. Diving for pearls, otherwise known as pearling, remains part of the country’s cultural DNA.

“I always say that all Bahrainis have pearl diving in their blood,” Mohamed Alslaise, a pearl diver and field researcher for the Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) tells UN News. “Almost all the families that moved from the Arabian Gulf or Iranian coast to Bahrain were divers.”

Mr. Alslaise is passionate about preserving and reviving this age-old tradition, notes that many families in the Gulf nation have a member who was either a pearl diver or contributed in some way to the pearl diving industry.

Pearling in the Persian Gulf shaped Bahrain’s economy for thousands of years but, following a peak around the turn of the 20th century, the perfection of cultured pearls by Japan in the 1930s caused a sharp and devastating decline in the industry.

Khaled Salman, a diver since the 1970s, explains that while diving continues, it’s no longer done in the old way.

Bahraini diver, Mohamed Alslaise extracting pearls from oysters.

UN Video/Hisae Kawamori

Bahraini diver, Mohamed Alslaise extracting pearls from oysters.

“Nowadays, larger quantities are extracted due to advancements in technology, allowing divers to stay underwater for longer periods. In the past, a diver would stay underwater for four minutes, but now scuba divers can remain underwater for an hour or more.”

Due to lower pearl prices, Salman notes, “Many people don’t sell the pearls they extract; they store them until prices rise and then sell them to traders in Bahrain.”

Some pearls are used in local industries, while others are marketed outside Bahrain. He also highlights three types of pearls: synthetic, cultured, and natural, adding that “distinguishing between these types requires experience and modern equipment.”

The decline in pearling also affected Bahrain’s shipbuilding industry. Abdulla, a designer of wooden ships and boats for over 35 years, shares his perspective: “Bahrain is famous for its shipbuilding industry, which was integral to pearling. There are several types of ships, varying by design, but now smaller ships are used for pearling due to decreased demand.”

The wood for shipbuilding is imported from Africa and Singapore, and, says Abdulla, the lifespan of a ship can extends beyond 100 years.

Abdulla, a designer of wooden ships and boats for over 35 years.

UN Video/Hisae Kawamori

Abdulla, a designer of wooden ships and boats for over 35 years.

Folklore, songs and tradition

“Most Bahraini traditions are connected to the pearl diving industry. For instance, the pearl diving songs,” says Mr. Alslaise. “The folklore of pearl diving has been passed down for generations. We still sing the same songs, which were originally sung to boost morale on the boats.”

Bahrain’s historic pearling site, known as the Pearling Pathhas been inscribed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site testifies to the pearling tradition and the wealth it generated in the Gulf region for millennia.

According to UNESCO, the area consists of 17 buildings in Murharraq city, three offshore oyster beds, part of the seashore and the Qal’at Bu Mahir fortress on the southern tip of Muharraq Island, from where boats used to set off for the oyster beds.

There are shops, storehouses, a mosque, and the homes of wealthy merchants in the area. According to UNESCO, the location is the only complete example of the pearling cultural tradition and the wealth it produced during the period when the Gulf economy was dominated by trade from the second century until Japan developed cultured pearls.

It also constitutes an outstanding example of traditional utilization of the sea’s resources and human interaction with the environment, which shaped both the economy and cultural identity of the island’s society.

A band performing a pearl diving song in Bahrain. The folklore of pearl diving has been passed down for generations.

UN News/ Abdelmonem Makki

A band performing a pearl diving song in Bahrain. The folklore of pearl diving has been passed down for generations.

Pearling is back 

“I am one of the people who fell in love with pearl diving without any guidance from my parents or family,” Mr. Alslaise. “The generation before us was not allowed to dive when they were young because, after oil was discovered, all the jobs shifted to the oil industry.”

According to Mr. Alslaise, since 2017, when Bahraini authorities introduced pearl diving licenses, many people who signed up had no prior knowledge of pearl diving.

“Now, seven years down the line, many Bahrainis have reconnected with this heritage. Over 1,000 divers are now registered and dive regularly to create an income for themselves.”

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