Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas (R) arrives to lay a wreath of flowers by the graves of Palestinians killed in recent Israeli military raids on the Jenin camp for Palestinian refugees, ahead of a visit by the Palestinian president in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank on July 12, 2023. (Credit: Zain Jaafar/AFP)
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas arrived Wednesday in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on his first visit in over a decade, a week after the largest Israeli raid there in years.
Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed last week in the two-day raid on Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp, a regular site of fierce fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
The raid on the camp, which Israel views as a "terrorism hub," employed hundreds of troops as well as drone strikes and army bulldozers that tore up streets and damaged scores of houses.
Soon after the raid, several top officials of Abbas's Fatah party, including deputy chairman Mahmoud Aloul, had visited the camp only to be heckled by crowds of angry residents.
Abbas arrived on Wednesday by helicopter in Jenin camp, an AFP correspondent said.
His office earlier said he was due to review the "progress of work in the reconstruction of the camp and the city".
Ahead of Abbas's arrival, hundreds of soldiers from the presidential guard were seen patrolling the streets of the camp, an AFP journalist said, adding that snipers had also taken positions on rooftops.
His visit "is a strong and important message... that he stands with the Palestinian people in their resistance to the occupation," Atta Abu Rumaila, Fatah's secretary-general in the camp, told AFP.
But Abdullah, a resident of the camp who gave only his first name, appeared to cast doubt over the purpose of the visit.
"What is more important is what happens after he leaves, and whether they [the Palestinian Authority] continue caring about the camp," he told AFP.
Deteriorating security
In the camp, a few meters from where Abbas was due to give a speech later in the day, a group of children were chanting "Katiba, Katiba, Katiba" in support of local armed group the Jenin Brigade.
The Jenin camp was established in 1953 to house some of those among the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 when Israel was created, an event Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe."
Over time, the camp's original tents have been replaced by concrete, and it now resembles something closer to a neighborhood.
The camp, which houses some 18,000 people, was also a hotbed of activity during the second "intifada" or uprising of the early 2000s.
Over the past 18 months, the security situation in the camp has deteriorated, with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority having little real presence there.
Abbas, 87, last visited Jenin in 2012 but had not toured the camp at the time.
While the PA remains somewhat present in the city, it has largely abandoned the camp to groups such as the Jenin Brigade, which Israel alleges is backed by Iran.
Abbas had previously visited the camp itself in 2004 while running for the Palestinian presidential election after the death of leader Yasser Arafat.
During that trip Abbas was famously embraced by Zakaria Zubeidi, a senior militant in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who for years was on Israel's most wanted list.
Experts were however skeptical of Abbas's visit on Wednesday.
"Through his made-for-camera visit, Abbas wants to show that he and his Palestinian Authority are firmly in control of Jenin," Hugh Lovatt, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.
"In reality, making a rare visit outside of his Ramallah fiefdom will do little to re-establish the Palestinian Authority given the deepening crisis of legitimacy it is facing and the rise of Palestinian armed groups."