Operation Home and Garden, launched in the early hours of Monday, July 3, sparked many reactions on Palestinian social media – from questions about the nature of the operation to calls for revenge.
Two central questions were debated. One, was there indeed an element of surprise here, as with Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza? According to the Palestinians, the answer is no. Based on the posts online, the residents of Jenin were prepared for an Israeli operation, primarily due to three signs: helicopters flying over Jenin in recent days, the Israeli rhetoric, and Israeli reports of rockets launched from the Jenin area, which the Palestinians claimed were used to justify a broad operation.
Second, was there anything new? Here too, according to the Palestinians, the answer is no. The residents of Jenin do not think there was a big difference between this operation and Operation Break the Wave. "Break the Wave [in Hebrew] is 10 letters, and Home and Garden [in Hebrew] is 6 letters,” one of Jenin’s residents told me sarcastically. They of course saw that there were attacks from the air and more forces on the ground, but did not feel a significant essential difference between the operations.
Regarding multiple arenas, the Palestinian discourse indicates that Gaza was currently out of the game. From the messages of the leaders of the Palestinian factions it can be understood that it is not the number of casualties that would lead them to open another front, but the number of tanks. According to them, if they saw tanks in the center of the city of Jenin, they would interpret this sight as an Israeli attempt to occupy the area, and hence there would be an expansion of the arenas. At the same time, there was criticism over the lack of intervention by the Palestinian factions in many online videos against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including criticism they did not join the campaign.
It’s important to pay attention to the calls for revenge, which were intended to shift attention from Jenin to the centers of the Israeli cities. There were many calls for revenge in the north of the West Bank – Nablus and Jenin, while Ramallah, Jericho, and Hebron were quiet and did not join in shutting down the economy. It is important to monitor this trend.
Operation Home and Garden, launched in the early hours of Monday, July 3, sparked many reactions on Palestinian social media – from questions about the nature of the operation to calls for revenge.
Two central questions were debated. One, was there indeed an element of surprise here, as with Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza? According to the Palestinians, the answer is no. Based on the posts online, the residents of Jenin were prepared for an Israeli operation, primarily due to three signs: helicopters flying over Jenin in recent days, the Israeli rhetoric, and Israeli reports of rockets launched from the Jenin area, which the Palestinians claimed were used to justify a broad operation.
Second, was there anything new? Here too, according to the Palestinians, the answer is no. The residents of Jenin do not think there was a big difference between this operation and Operation Break the Wave. "Break the Wave [in Hebrew] is 10 letters, and Home and Garden [in Hebrew] is 6 letters,” one of Jenin’s residents told me sarcastically. They of course saw that there were attacks from the air and more forces on the ground, but did not feel a significant essential difference between the operations.
Regarding multiple arenas, the Palestinian discourse indicates that Gaza was currently out of the game. From the messages of the leaders of the Palestinian factions it can be understood that it is not the number of casualties that would lead them to open another front, but the number of tanks. According to them, if they saw tanks in the center of the city of Jenin, they would interpret this sight as an Israeli attempt to occupy the area, and hence there would be an expansion of the arenas. At the same time, there was criticism over the lack of intervention by the Palestinian factions in many online videos against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including criticism they did not join the campaign.
It’s important to pay attention to the calls for revenge, which were intended to shift attention from Jenin to the centers of the Israeli cities. There were many calls for revenge in the north of the West Bank – Nablus and Jenin, while Ramallah, Jericho, and Hebron were quiet and did not join in shutting down the economy. It is important to monitor this trend.