A few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv, beyond the Judea and Samaria security barrier, but adjacent to the Trans-Israel Highway (Route 6), lies the city of Tulkarem. Since Oct. 7, 2023, fighting has been ongoing between IDF troops and terrorists in the hostile camps on both sides of the city, Nur a-Shams and the Tulkarm camp.
About a year ago, terrorists from these camps tried to fire rockets at central Israel and planned attacks similar to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led onslaught from Gaza.
About an hour’s drive north is the more significant hotspot. The Jenin camp is an extreme slum in the heart of a beautiful city that, until the Swords of Iron war, was an attractive destination for Palestinian and Israeli Arab university students.
Not far from where the Arab American University is located, battles have been raging for nearly two years between a battalion of terrorists and security forces. In the past two months, both Palestinian Authority and IDF troops have managed to carry out an exceptionally large-scale operation against the terrorists.
The IDF’s “Operation Iron Wall” is an opportunity to go back to basics and ask the obvious question: Why has the northern Samaria region become a war zone, which, if not for the battles in Gaza and Lebanon, would have been considered the biggest hotbed of terrorism in the past year, and how did Jenin become a symbol of terrorism, even more so than Khan Yunis or Rafah in Gaza?
A few months ago, I found myself in the heart of Jenin. It was immediately after “Operation Summer Camps,” led by the IDF, and before a P.A. operation. In the square leading into the Jenin camp, the epicenter of terrorist activity, stood pictures of terrorists eliminated by the IDF.
This was not an unusual sight in a city that has become a symbol of terrorism in Judea and Samaria, and in one of the squares leading to the city, huge pictures of the two terrorists who murdered seven Israelis in an attack on the light rail in Jaffa a few weeks earlier were displayed. Welcome to “the city of martyrs.”
To understand what made Jenin such a terrorist hotbed, we need to go back 23 years to “Operation Defensive Shield.” This was the time of the Second Intifada, which claimed the lives of a thousand Israelis in severe suicide attacks. A suicide bomber entered the Park Hotel in Netanya during the Passover Seder celebration in 2002 and blew himself up, killing 30 Israelis, including a father and daughter, several married couples and 11 Holocaust survivors.
Until Oct. 7, this was the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the State of Israel.
Following the attack, which was the peak of bloody months where there was almost a daily suicide bombing, the IDF launched “Defensive Shield.” The toughest battle took place in the Jenin camp, where the terrorists were well-prepared with booby traps and ambushes.
In total, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed in the battles in Jenin, and between 52 and 56 Palestinians, most of them armed terrorists. During the operation, which lasted 10 days, many houses were destroyed as part of the battles.
They remember those battles in Jenin. The “refugee” camp is a severe slum that encourages violence and terrorism. Unemployed young people, highly incited against Israel, live on the myth of what happened during “Defensive Shield” and the supposed heroism of the previous generation in the Second Intifada.
Established in 1953, the Jenin camp is the second-largest in Judea and Samaria, after Balata on the outskirts of Nablus. Exactly how many residents live there is unknown, but it could range anywhere between 11,000 and 16,000 people living in crowded and poor conditions.
The young people call themselves “Ibn al-Mukhayam” (“Sons of the Camp”). The young generation does not recognize the Palestinian Authority security forces or local leadership. The camp has strengthened and nurtured radical forces in the city over the years.
In recent years, and even more so since Oct. 7, 2023, these camp residents have become an armed force. Unlike Hebron, Ramallah or even Gaza, the terrorist forces unite as locals and not according to organizational affiliation such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad. They call themselves the Jenin Battalion, and they have proven, at least for now, determination and willingness to harm Israelis despite IDF activity.
This is also the reason for “Operation Iron Wall,” which began on Jan. 21 and seems, on the face of it, to be a reality-changing operation.
Last week, the IDF admitted for the first time the existence of the Jenin Battalion, because only then could the army declare that the goal is to eliminate it. The troops carried out exceptional military activity, going house to house, searching for ammunition, and opening routes in the heart of the dense slum by demolishing houses.

Jenin as role model
The operation extended to Tulkarem as well. The terrorist battalions in the city are a direct spin-off of the Jenin camp. For years, they saw their friends in Jenin as role models. They equipped themselves with weapons and explosives, which they planted under roads, waiting for IDF soldiers to arrive. Over the years, Tulkarem has become somewhat more dangerous than those in Jenin, partly because the city abuts the Green Line and is in very close proximity to central Israel.
The IDF is determined to regain control of the area, which until 2005 had a few isolated Israeli communities and is now, to some extent, a large terror state.
The Palestinian Authority shares this interest, wanting to establish governance in the area. The P.A.’s concern is that it may completely lose control over the entire Judea and Samaria area, as Bashar Assad lost control in Syria, while the IDF wants to eradicate terrorism and bring it back to dimensions that can be handled with a jeep or two, instead of a brigade or more.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.