Jenin

Jenin, town (2003 est. pop. 34,000), West Bank, at the southern entrance to the Esdraelon Valley and on the northern edge of the Samarian Highlands. It is an important crossroads, urban center, and market town and is also the site of a large Palestinian refugee camp. The town's economy is based on service, craft, some industry, and local agriculture, which produces wheat, barley, olives, dates, figs, and vegetables.

Jenin is believed to have been built on the site of the ancient city of Ein-Ganam, mentioned in the Egyptian Amarna tablets (see Tell el Amarna), or the biblical town of Ginnat. Once the site of a Byzantine church, now in ruins, Jenin was captured by Christian knights during the Crusades. The town was used as a Turkish-German army base during World War I, became part of the Palestine mandate (1923-48), and was annexed (1950) by Jordan. A center of Palestinian guerrilla activity after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Jenin was occupied by Israel from the Six-Day War (1967) until 1995, when it came under Palestinian control. Jenin was the center of fierce Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2002, when the town was heavily damaged.

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Jenin

Jenin (Arabic: ; ג'נין), a city in the West Bank's Jenin Governorate, is a major Palestinian agricultural center.

Jenin also refers to the adjoining Jenin Refugee Camp and is the name of the surrounding district within the West Bank. Although designated as being under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, the Israel Defense Force invaded the city during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 and has conducted regular incursions into the city since.

Geography

The overlooks both the Jordan Valley to the east and the Marj Ibn Amer (Jezreel Valley) to the north. Jenin is thought to be the site of the Israelite village of En-Gannim, mentioned in the Bible (See also: Anem).

History

Jenin was known in ancient times as the Canaanite village of Ein-Ganeem or Tel Jenin. The city of Ein-Ganeem is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the city of the Levites of the Tribe of Issachar. After some years, the city's name was changed to Ginat. In book of Yehudit the settlement is mentioned as Gini. The Jewish historian Josephus also mentioned Ganim as a city in northern Samaria. The modern Arabic name Jenin ultimately derives from this ancient name. The origin of the place as Ein-Ganeem was recognised by Ishtori Haparchi. In the 20th century C.E., the State of Israel built a nearby Israeli settlement, Ganim, also named after the ancient village. This settlement was evacuated in August 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. Another Israeli community was also given the name of Ein Ganim, today part of Petah Tikva.

Jenin was a center of civil unrest during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine which was prompted by the assassination by the British of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, for whom a Hamas military wing was since named. It was also used by Fawzi al-Qawuqji's partisans. On August 25, 1938, the after the British Assistant District Commissioner was assassinated in his Jenin office, a large British force with explosives entered the town. After ordering the inhabitants to leave, about one quarter of the town was blown up.

In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the city was defended by Iraqi forces, then captured briefly by forces of Israeli Karmeli Brigade during the "10 Days' fighting" following the cancellation of the first cease-fire. The offensive was actually a feint designed to draw Arab forces away from the critical Siege of Jerusalem, and gains in that sector were quickly abandoned when Arab reinforcements arrived.

The southern entrance of Jenin holds a cemetry of the martyrs of the Iraqi army and some Palestinians who fought with them against the Israeli forces.

The Jenin refugee camp was founded in 1953 to house Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their native villages and towns in the areas that became the Israeli territory during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

For 19 years, the city was under Jordanian control; it was then captured by the Peled division of the IDF on the first day of the Six-Day War of 1967.

Conflict years

The city was handed over by Israel to the control of the Palestinian Authority in 1996. At the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Israel alleged that the city had become a central source for the dispatching of suicide bombers to the North and Center of Israel. According to Israeli sources, a quarter of all suicide bombings carried out in Israel during the current, second Intifada originated in Jenin. See Palestinian political violence for an in-depth discussion of this broader issue.

Battle of Jenin

Following the battle, Jenin fell under the control of the Israeli military. In that time, residents of Jenin have been subject to extended curfews (over 150 days since June 2002, nearly all prior to 2004. Several suspected Palestinian militants and nearby civilians have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces, which terms these actions "targeted killings". 56 Palestinians were killed, the majority combatants, and 23 Israelis. UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employee Iain Hook was also killed by Israeli troops on November 22, 2002.

Demographics

According to projections based on a 1997 census, the city of Jenin has a population of 35,000 Palestinians. The Jenin refugee camp housed approximately 12,000 refugees, according to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) on 373 dunams (92 acres). Some 42.3% of the population of the camp is under the age of fifteen.

Features

One of the city's quarters is an official United Nations refugee camp housing mostly the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It has long been a center of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The city includes the Martyr Doctor Khalil Suleiman Hospital. The city also includes a monument for German pilots whose planes were shot down in Jenin during the First World War and the monument holds an original propeller made of wood

Government

Jenin municipality was established in 1886 under the ottoman rule with no more than 80 voters and elections were made every 4 years until 1982 when the Israeli government took control over the municipality until 1995

List of Jenin mayors:

Andulmajeed Mansour
Abdulrahman Al-Haj Hassan
Ragheb Al-Souki
Al-Haj Hassan Fazaa'
Tawfeek Mansour
Bshara Atallah
Hussein al-Abboushi
Aref Abdulrahman
Fahmi al-Abboushi
Tahseen Abdulhadi
Abdulraheem Jarrar
Saleh Arif Azzouqa
Hussni Al-Souki
Ahmed Kamal Al-saa'di
Ahmed Shawki Al-Mahmoud
Shehab Al-Sanouri
Abdullah Lahlouh
Waleed Abu Muees (appointed)

Municipal elections were held in Jenin on 15 December 2005. Six seats each were won by Hamas and the local coalition of Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Jenin was one of several Palestinian cities where Hamas showed a dramatic growth in electoral support. The mayor of Jenin is Hadem Rida.