Jenin
- After the Israeli occupation's decision to enter the city of Jenin (northern West Bank) and carry out a military operation, which it described as a "quick", and the tremendous resistance that followed it among the Palestinians, the occupation continued its collective economic and military punishment against the "stubborn" city.
From the top of the political and military hierarchy, the decision to blockade came from the Israeli Minister of War, Benny Gantz, with four prohibitions:
Merchants and business leaders who hold special BMC cards from the Jenin area will not be allowed to enter the territory of the State of Israel.
The entry and exit of Israeli Arabs (in cars or on foot) will not be permitted through the Al-Jalama crossings in the north and Barta'a in the west.
Stopping the transfer of rock aggregate through the crossings in Jenin Governorate.
Due to the security situation, family visits will not be allowed for Palestinians from the Jenin area (within the 5,000 permits that have been approved).
With great caution, the occupation continued to allow Palestinian workers holding permits from Jenin governorate to enter Israel, with increased inspections at the crossings.
The occupation was not satisfied with that, so it followed its steps with military measures represented in besieging the city more and erecting fixed and mobile barriers in its vicinity, and tightened its grip, preventing communication between it and the surrounding villages and cities, in addition to daily incursions and violations.
In the face of all this, other cities in the West Bank rose up not only at the level of resistance and confrontation and the transfer of battles to their squares, but also announced the provision of economic aid and the conduct of individual and collective convoys during these days to break the siege and isolation.
This was adopted by local bodies, NGOs and other personal initiatives, all of which affirmed that "Jenin is not alone."
Support from Nablus
On her Facebook page, the head of the Consumer Protection Association in Nablus, Fayhaa al-Bahsh, launched the first of these initiatives and made an “call” to the cities of the West Bank to support Jenin and break its siege by visiting her, shopping from her and breaking the fast at her tables, in addition to encouraging university students to work on youth initiatives to collect donations. Some of them already, as well as blood donation campaigns for the relief of the injured.
Al-Bahsh says - to Al Jazeera Net - that the invitation was personal at first, but soon the Consumer Protection Association took the matter on its own and sent general invitations to all, especially the youth group, with the intensification of the crisis in the besieged city, especially since it is not the first time and will not be the last in which the occupation besieged a province. Or a Palestinian city.
Al-Bahsh adds that the campaign is not restricted to a day, event or condition by the mechanism of transportation by public or private buses, so that it creates a state of human mobility and then continuous commercial activity, and for this reason Al-Bash confirms that the goal of the support campaigns is solidarity and that the people of Jenin do not feel that the occupation has singled them out and that they were left alone to confront him.
Nablus municipality employees during a sit-in in solidarity with Jenin (Al-Jazeera)
Local and municipal authorities participate in these campaigns, as is the case in the towns of Salfit and Nablus, which announced that it would provide the city with special visits for its employees and provide buses to transport citizens.
The Syndicate of Engineers in Nablus also launched its campaign "One homeland, one concern", to support the city financially and morally. Yazan Jabr, head of the Syndicate of Engineers - Nablus Branch, said that their campaign is solidarity and encouragement to support the city's economy.
But the most important message, Jabr adds to Al Jazeera Net, is their refusal to single out the occupation in any city and break any siege it is exposed to, and for this reason their campaign, which will start next Sunday, "will be many and varied in forms, and it will not be a one-off."
Nablus also witnessed a sit-in for workers in the city's municipality, in which they called to support Jenin in every way so that the occupier would not reach his goal, and confirmed that they would organize support visits in the coming days.
difficult situations
With the siege imposed by Israel on Jenin, it prevents the entry of about 8,000 Palestinians from the occupied interior in 1948. Each visitor spends an average of $100, and during the month of Ramadan, visitors double and the amount of spending approaches $250 per visitor.
The matter was further complicated by the occupation army's closure of 6 openings (corridors through the separation wall to enter the Green Line), through which 11,000 workers enter (without a permit).
Jenin merchants - more than others - perceive this Israeli closure of their city, as the merchant Omar Mosleh sits in front of his shop selling imported clothes, turning the social networking pages on his mobile phone to follow the latest events and developments in Jenin and elsewhere.
The city of Jenin faces an Israeli closure and siege and rises against the Israeli occupation (Al-Jazeera)
Omar, 50, says that he is closing his shop for the fourth time since the beginning of Ramadan, and before that it closed many times due to Israeli incursions and the occurrence of confrontations and martyrs, thus declaring the general strike and making the city empty of shoppers "as if it is turning into a ghost town."
Omar, who comes from the city of Nablus, travels more than 60 kilometers to reach his shop in the city of Jenin. early".
Like Omar, Hajj Abu Farid, the owner of a clothing store in the Al-Nafaa commercial market (central Jenin), was inspecting his goods and was about to close his shop, which no customer entered.
He says in his colloquial accent, "The day you will open his father a sheikh," meaning that whoever sells any piece of clothing even once a day is fortunate.
Support is the most important and most important
And Jenin came out a few months ago from the closure of the Al-Jalama border crossing with the Palestinian interior, as Israel was closing it under the pretext of preventing the Corona virus, and its closure means that merchants do not move to inspect their goods in the port, and thus their rights are lost due to the transactions between them and the merchants inside Israel, as well as the high prices Because the merchant cannot see his goods, load them himself, and supervise that.
The director of the Jenin Chamber of Commerce, Muhammad Kamil, says that such support campaigns are more important than their economic support - given that the difficult conditions are the case for all Palestinian cities - lies in the moral support and that the people of Jenin feel that they are not alone in facing the occupation.