Yesterday morning at 3am, approximately 20 tanks and APCs, 6 hummers
and
6 jeeps invaded Jenin town centre and proceeded to lay the Seabaht, Old
City and Murrah areas to seige. There were clashes instantly as
soldiers
enterd the streets and proceeded to occupy the following homes:

The Abu Mrrur family home in the Seabaht area. 3am. The Abu Mrrur
family's home has been occupied twice before. Soldiers have stayed for
periods ranging approximately 2-6 days. This time approx. 8 soldiers
entered, shooting, damaging windows, furniture, walls and clothing.
They
opened fire on wardrobes plus a hung-up and ready hired wedding dress
destined for Salli Abu Mrrur's wedding today. The white satin gown as
well as the under-cage were riddled with singe-rimmed holes. The
soldiers
beat Salli's father and refused to let them go to the toilet. The
soldiers vacated their home by 7pm that day.

In Khaldi Ibin Walleed street, Murrah area: The Arrkawe House (occupied
once before), the Zrebi house, the Larrabi house, the house of Sheikh
Dawfeek Jarrad and house of Hassan Kallood.

In the Old City in Tal'et Forn Abu Mousa street, home to the best
Bakery
in town, churning out steaming stacks of bread all-day every day,
curfew
or no curfew, soldiers occupied the home of Mohammad Nassaar. Amni
Massar, his 65-year-old mother, became extreemely distressed due to the
violent entry and presence of the soldiers and had to be taken to
hospital. The homes of Khalid Souke and Mohammad Kweiti were also
occupied.

2 more homes (empty and derelict) were occupied in Mujahedeen street in
the Old City Area.

A gutted restaurant and comercial building in the town centre, looking
out onto the main square were also occupied. Soldiers took up sniper
positions in all the premesis' they took and at 3am, Se'ed Hammal
Fahmawi, 21, a Sarya Al Qds (Jihad Islmai) activist, suffered multiple
gunshot wounds to the head and body from sniper fire (only deduced as
the
means of his death after some time. Fighters had not been able to
identify how he had been shot. Se'ed had been alone when he was killed)
in the main Old City square area. When paramedics attempted to retrieve
his body, which had been lying on the road for over two hours, their
ambulance was shot at by soldiers. Luckily none of the paramedics were
injured.

All electricity and phonelines were forcibly downed in the Seabaht and
Old City area from 3am onwards. The Baladia (local Council) reported
over
10 wooden electricity pylons destroyed.

Soldiers blew up tens of shop-front and house doors, trashing their
insides (not in all the shops, but the force of the explosions was
enough
to cause significant damage) shooting beds, wardobes, fridges, sofas,
turning over furniture, shooting up clothing, kitchen cupbaords and
partially demolished at least 5 homes, particularly in the Intifada
Street area, in their house to house searches. Tanks reversed into the
houses, crushing walls and smashing/bending in windows. Gaping holes
revealing dust covered livingrooms, plus piles of rubble - once wals -
littered the streets. The streets themselves, in many places, were
cub-crushed and tank-ground into gravel. A truck and two cars had been
meshed together from the force of their impact with charging tanks. The
front part of the truck had exploded and sent flames licking into the
sky
after being shot with a tank shell. A friend's new car was demolished
by
a tank-shell. Another car, next to a school in the Murrah area which
had
also been charged by a tank and shot at, had been flipped up onto its
side and was badly battered.

From approximately 3pm - 5.30pm, 30 people, incuding 13 children, from
the Abboushi family (three homes) plus myself, were detained in one
room
and forbidden from leaving at gunpoint. No telephone contact was
allowed
and I had to fight to keep my mobiles with me, defending them at M16
cock-snapped back gunpoint and from the grabbing clutches of an IOF
soldier.

At 7am, soldiers demanded, through a loudhailer, that every man aged
between 15-50 leave their homes and come to the city-centre girls'
school
to be herded up, registered, plastic-cord-cuffed, and interrogated. The
mass arrest operation saw over 70 men and youths (some as young as 14)
incarcerated in the school for over 14 hours. The prisoners were all
made
to sit in rows, class-room like, on the floor, hands bound, in a room,
watched by soldiers, before being marched up to interrogation rooms
upstairs. Prisoners were treated 'well' they said, with sandwiches and
water given to them by their captors. However, after I spoke to people
who had been interrogated, some said they had been physically
assaulted.
But this did not appear to be routine. I was allowed to enter and check
on their condition and give them cigarettes. Two men released at 10pm
were re-arrested and beaten by soldiers as they walked back to their
homes, 'for being in the street during curfew'. 5 from the 70 arrested
were then taken away for further inerrogation/arbitrary detention.
Walleed Jabreen, 36-years-old, from the Old City area, was arrested at
6am. He was not wanted. Soldiers stole a checkbook and two mobile
phones
from his brother Bader Jabreen in the process.

At 7.30pm in the evening. IOF soldiers demolished the home of Iyyad
Tayseen Abu Lell, a Hamas activist, who himself was assassinated 3
months
ago by soldiers near the local council offices. His home was located on
the outskirts of Jenin Camp. The family were granted, unusually, over
an
hour to gather up their belongings and move them out. Local people tell
me the house was very large. I haven't seen it myself yet.

The IOF left at 10pm yesterday night. Tanks returned for their
set-piece
standoffs with the fighters at 3am, coming and going for a few hours
before leaving for Jenin to wake up to Prayer day and the funeral march
of Se'ed.

What these reports can't convey in their factual nature and brevity due
to time constaints is the utter frustration and truamatisation of
people;
home after home, scenes of people-picking-up-the-pieces; a 13-year-old
friend of mine, sat crying his eyes out on top of piles of clothing, an
upturned fridge, mattresses, just wanting his mother and gaspingly
recounting how they kept asking him where the gun is? Wheres the Gun?
Children wide-eyed and full of energy, unable to stop talking, children
rolling around on the floor, screaming, trying to hit out at the
soldiers
sat blocking their exit, grown men asking soldiers if they can please
leave the one bedroom they and their family have been holed up in for 6
hours, and use their own toilet.