Death in Jenin Family mourn loss as IDF brings Gaza tactics to West Bank

Waleed Lahlouh was 73, with a shock of white hair that marked his age, when Israeli soldiers shot him dead on a sunny February morning outside his home in Jenin refugee camp. He was killed, relatives said, trying to collect winter clothes for his family.

- Emma Graham-Harrison and Sufian Taha Jenin

He had fled with his children and grandchildren a week earlier when Israeli troops moved into the camp and ordered residents out within an hour. They had scrambled to gather documents, valuables and phones, and had little time to pack clothes.

"He went to get some things we need, but he was shot before he even got into the house," his daughter Samia Lahlouh, 45, said. "The grandchildren ask us: 'Grandpa was old and didn't do anything bad, why did they want to kill him?" She did not have an answer for them.

The Lahlouhs are among 40,000 people forced from refugee camps across the occupied West Bank this year, the largest displacement since Israel seized the territory in 1967. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that "evacuated" Palestinians would not be able to go back home this year, and sent three tanks to Jenin.

Palestinians who have lost homes and loved ones in the past month describe Jenin as a "little Gaza" because of the scale of destruction, death and displacement. The same comparison is made in Israel, with some cabinet members demanding the use of military tactics from Gaza as domestic critics warn against the "Gazafication" of the West Bank.

The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has called for Palestinian cities there to be emptied and destroyed as a preemptive strike to prevent attacks on Jewish settlers. "Nablus and Jenin need to look like Jabaliya," he said in January, referencing one of the worst-hit areas of Gaza.

At least seven Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces since the operation began in January, including a two-yearold girl shot dead in her home just outside Jenin, the UN said.

Along with Lahlouh, other victims include a heavily pregnant woman shot at a checkpoint.

Lahlouh was a gentle, playful taxi driver, born and raised in Jenin camp, who for decades poured his energy and money into educating his eight daughters, Samia said.