Trying to heal the trauma of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank

In Tulkarem and Jenin, dedicated volunteers work to help the people traumatised and displaced by Israel’s raids.

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Jenin and Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Omaima Faraj bows her head in silence for a moment – she’s tired, but the work does not stop.

She arrives at a school-turned-shelter near Tulkarem where her first patient, an elderly displaced woman who greets her tenderly, is waiting for her to measure her glucose and blood pressure. Then she moves to the next classroom, the next patient, walking down an open passage drenched in late-February sunshine.

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Faraj, 25, has been volunteering to help residents devastated by the Israeli raids for weeks. She is one of the young Palestinians working to address the emergency Israel is creating across the occupied West Bank as it raids refugee camps and displaces thousands.

Rushing into danger

When Israel’s military occupation and displacement of the camp began in what the Israelis have called operation “Iron Wall”, on January 21, Faraj rushed into the camp instead of running away from the violence.

The volunteers prioritise visits to patients with chronic diseases [Al Jazeera]

She stayed there with her fellow volunteers for more than 12 critical days, when the attacks were at their fiercest and people were still trying to organise to flee the camp.

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They focused on delivering aid to people in need – the injured, the elderly, and people with limited mobility. Nobody could get to a hospital because the Israeli soldiers wouldn’t let them.

Israeli soldiers harassed the volunteers, Faraj recounts, describing how they would threaten her and her colleagues, telling them to leave and never return or they’d be shot.

One incident particularly haunts her, of an elderly man who was trapped in his house for four days.

The team kept trying to reach him, but Israeli soldiers blocked their path. Finally, the International Committee of the Red Cross intervened, coordinating with the Israelis to allow safe passage for the volunteers.

When they reached the man, he was in dire straits – lacking food, water and hygiene for four days, but they were finally able to evacuate him.

As they were leaving, they were goaded, warned not to return – or risk being shot.

Backpack medics

“We didn’t have an emergency plan for this,” says Alaa Srouji, director of the Al-Awda Center in Tulkarem.

Two volunteers visit an elderly displaced woman to help her and check her health [Al Jazeera]

Al-Awda and the Lajee Center of Aida Camp in Bethlehem are training volunteers to document the expulsions of people and camp conditions so they can assess the aid needed.

The volunteers are about 15 mostly female nurses and medics who came together when the Israeli raids began, to provide medical aid and distribute essentials to the thousands who were harmed.

Their young faces show the toll of nearly two months of working nonstop with people displaced by the Israeli attack on the Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps.

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They are struggling to fill a huge gap left when Israel banned the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) from helping people in the occupied West Bank.

These volunteers don’t have headquarters, they spend all day walking around to serve people with nothing more than their backpacks and determination.

They go to one of the 11 temporary, hurriedly set up shelters or wherever their patients have managed to find a place to live.

They bring medical and psychological support and also clothes, food, and other necessities to those who have lost everything to Israel’s raiding soldiers.

Ismael, 23, risked returning to Tulkarem camp, where his home was. He stands in awe of the destruction Israel has inflicted [Al Jazeera]

In their backpacks are gauze, portable glucose monitors, gloves, bandages, tourniquets, manual blood pressure monitors, notebooks and pens.

“Our role as a local community is so important,” says Alaa.

The volunteers must also support each other emotionally, holding group sessions to cope with the toll of working within their devastated communities.

Many of them are from the camp, so they are also displaced, targeted, and have seen their neighbourhoods levelled by Israeli bulldozers.

Faraj is no different. Like many Palestinians, she is marked by loss and violence after her 18-year-old brother was killed by an Israeli drone in January 2024.

The camp is a no-go zone. Some displaced residents take the risk of returning to their homes to try to retrieve some of their belongings.

They navigate rubble-filled streets, the stench of rotting food left behind in now-abandoned houses, and sewers torn open by bulldozers, while Israeli soldiers patrol and drones hover overhead, searching for movement inside the camp.

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Laughing, crying, screaming the trauma

An hour’s drive from Tulkarem is Jenin, and 10 minutes from Jenin is a village called Kafr Dan where an unusual sound filters in the air – children’s laughter.

Children shout, jump, and scream during a Freedom Theater programme to allow them to discuss their trauma and give them a space for play and laughter [Al Jazeera]

About 20 children roam around the garden of a large house. They’re gathered into a rough circle by trainers who encourage them to speak – loudly – to let out their fear and anger.

The activity is organised by the Freedom Theater of Jenin, which came to Kafr Dan to provide this moment of respite for displaced children to simply be, at least for a moment.

They started up inside Jenin camp as a space where children and youth could participate in cultural activities but have been blocked by the Israeli army from being there.

So, “We bring the theatre to the children,” says Shatha Jarrar, one of the three activity coordinators.

The children are encouraged to be as loud as they like, to scream out the fear and anger they hold inside after the violence they have been exposed to.

A game involving a small ball balanced on a spoon is next, making the children laugh again and their watching mothers smile, happy to see their children happy.

Sitting by the side is a smiling Um Muhammed, 67, who has brought some of the children to join the activities.

They’re not her children, though, as she has offered shelter in her house to a family of seven who have recently been displaced from Jenin.

Shatha with the children she was working with as part of a Freedom Theater programme [Al Jazeera]

Um Muhammed was displaced in 2002, during the second Intifada, her home in the Jenin refugee camp destroyed by Israeli forces back when her three children were small.

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They are older now, she says, her eyes darting around as she recalls the trauma of displacement. They’ve got children of their own, and she is a grandmother.

Um Muhammed knows all too well the fear of Israeli tanks rolling in and explosions echoing. That’s why, now, she insists on helping people going through the same thing.

Shatha, 26, and her two co-organisers start putting their equipment away, stowing it in backpacks. Activities are done for today.

Shatha became aware of the Freedom Theater when she attended a programme there as a child and later decided to dedicate her time to the theatre’s legacy.

“Theatre is a different world and a way of life. My work with children is part of this world. The children are our tomorrow,” she says.

Near her is a mother – who prefers to withhold her name – who was watching her children.

Two men look at Nur Shams camp, most of whose residents have been forcibly displaced [Al Jazeera]

She, her husband and two children lived through the dystopian sight of Israeli drone quadcopters blaring orders to evacuate. Then came the Apache helicopters hovering in the sky, drone attacks, and a fleet of armoured vehicles invading, accompanied by heavily armed Israeli soldiers.

Her eyes widen and her speech quickens, the memories fresh as she tells her story.

Finally, as they left, they had to stand while Israeli soldiers scanned their faces and arrested some of the men trying to leave.

When they first left, she had held out hope that they would be allowed back in a few days.

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But the reality of their displacement is slowly settling in.

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