Tulkarm— Inside a deep pit, with a large iron pipe running through the center, sits the welding employee of Tulkarm Municipality, Madhat Badeer, who has been working for nearly 8 hours attempting to weld and repair the main water pipes in one of the streets of Tulkarm refugee camp, northwest of the West Bank, which were destroyed by Israeli occupation bulldozers last night following their raid on the camp.
Badeer has had to repair and weld the water pipes in the camp's main street five times following the repeated incursions carried out by Israeli military forces and their bulldozers.
Badeer shares, "We cannot leave our people without water. Today, I return to fix the water line that I was repairing last night. During every incursion into the camp, the Israeli bulldozers dredge the water lines in all the alleys and streets."
Policy of Deprivation
Badeer further explains, "This is a clear and deliberate damage to the people of the camp. The Israeli army destroys main and secondary water lines every time. They obliterate the networks that supply water to the citizens' homes, and they ruin the large networks that carry water from the big wells into the camp's neighborhoods. We see this in Tulkarm camp and also in Nur Shams camp."
Specialized crews work to repair what was destroyed by the Israeli occupation bulldozers during their raids on Tulkarm camp with the available tools. The camp's residents are forced to stay without water for days before the main and subsidiary lines are reactivated.
About this, Badeer says, "The work is very exhausting for us as a crew on the ground, and it is very tiring to repeatedly dig to a great depth to reach the water pipes and then reinstall them or disassemble them and install a new one. But we cannot leave the people without water, so we will continue to repair whatever they destroy time and again."
The camp's residents see the Israeli forces' aim in destroying the water networks as a clear policy to deprive the camp's residents of water and prevent its access as a way to pressure them to abandon resistance and to try to force them out of the camps.
Signs of extensive destruction in the streets of Tulkarm camp following its raid last night (Al Jazeera)
Camp Evacuation Scheme
Ramez Abu Suriya stands in front of his destroyed shop in Tulkarm camp, speaking to Al Jazeera Net about the significant destruction that befell the sole source of livelihood for him and his family.
He says, "I built this shop, which is a barbershop, after I was shot by the occupation in 2000. This injury caused me many health problems, and I lost my ability to walk normally, but even so, my shop was sabotaged three times to date."
He adds, "I have repaired the destruction in the shop, reopened it once and twice, and this is the third time it has been destroyed. We in the camp know that Israel's aim is to hit the resistance. They try to push people to hate the resistance and give it up as a popular support base and to reject the presence of the resistance fighters in the camp. We know Israel's goal with every raid in the camp, and with all this destruction and devastation they carry out."
Abu Suriya sees Israel's plan moving clearly towards emptying the camps of their residents after their displacement from their lands in 1948. The occupation is working to displace the inhabitants from their camps to end the issue of return and the refugees and their rights.
The citizen confirms that everything the occupation forces do in the camp will not affect its support for the popular resistance. The people of the camp care about the lives of the resistance fighters, and all this ruin can be compensated for as long as the resistance exists and responds to the occupation's attacks with all its might.
Resistance and Sacrifice
In the streets of the camp that were flooded, residents came out to witness the considerable damage caused by the occupation bulldozer last night to homes, commercial premises, and infrastructure. A female citizen described what happened during the incursion, saying, "We live in terror; fear is always with us. Sometimes I imagine that we are waiting for death at any moment. But what can we do? After all, death comes once, so it's better for us to die with dignity, pride, and steadfastness in our camp."
She added, "We will not leave the camp, and we cannot leave from here. A part of my house has been destroyed, and its windows have been broken, but all that is a sacrifice for Palestine, a sacrifice for the youth of the camp, and for the resistance. The enemy is one in Gaza, Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarm, and their goal is the same: to displace us from our land, but we remain steadfast."
