West Bank In a city of scars, Israel's raid stirs a long hatred

In the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, residents are struggling to return to normality after the longest - and deadliest - Israeli military operation in the area for 20 years. On Sunday, the start of the working week, traffic again choked the city centre for the first time in nearly two weeks after roads were repaired; street vendors sold peaches and the first of the season's pomegranates as the city slowly came back to life.

- Bethan McKernan

But in some places, sewage still flowed through streets dug up by military bulldozers. Many burnt-out buildings showed signs of fierce fighting, the upper floors now peppered with bullet holes and broken windows. Water and electricity infrastructure was severely damaged, and it is not clear when services will resume.

The damage across large parts of the town was unprecedented, said Abu Mahmoud, 61, who had opened his children's clothing shop for the first time in 10 days after it was clear the Israelis had left.

"Even in the second intifada it wasn't like this. They didn't destroy the roads and streets and go house to house," he said, referring to the bloody Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, during which Jenin was at the centre of the violence.

"The young men of the town are fighting the occupation, yes, because they can't find work and they don't see a future. But we did not start this. The Israelis forced this on us."

In the early hours of 28 August, hundreds of Israeli troops, police and intelligence operatives descended on Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Tubas and Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank as part of what the Israel Defense Forces dubbed Operation Summer Camps, employing what the UN called "lethal war-like tactics".