On May 21, Amr Musara set out to cover the Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The 25-year-old videographer worked with three Palestinian colleagues – all clearly identifiable as members of the press.

The Israeli army shot at them.

Musara was shot in the back while his colleagues lay on the ground to take cover. When the soldiers stopped shooting, Musara was taken to the nearest hospital.

“I thought I was going to die,” Musara told Al Jazeera by phone from his home, where he is recovering from his injuries.

Musara said Israel routinely shoots journalists throughout the West Bank.

“They’re after us, just like they’re after Shireen,” Musara said.

Israeli forces shot dead Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering a raid in Jenin in May 2022. United Nations investigative body concludes that the murder was deliberate.

“There was no danger [for the Israeli soldiers] around us. There were no resistance fighters.

“They just shot at us.”

Patterns of violence

Since the start of the war against Gaza on October 7, Israel has killed 516 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

According to a study by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and London-based research group Forensic Architecture, Israel typically sends undercover soldiers into West Bank cities to monitor and assess the area before the army or special forces arrive.

Last week, several undercover Israeli soldiers posing as Palestinians entered Jenin and took up positions between houses to monitor the camp.

The next morning, the army stormed the Jenin refugee camp with tanks, jeeps and bulldozers. The bulldozers were used to destroy shops, roads and houses, said journalist and camp resident Atef Abdul Rub.

“They started shooting in a school… at the students and teachers,” Abdul Rub told Al Jazeera.

Ten civilians were killed during Israel's recent incursion into the camp, including a teenager and a doctor.

Israel has repeatedly raided the Jenin refugee camp over the years, ostensibly to eliminate an umbrella group of armed groups known as the Jenin Brigades that oppose the Israeli occupation.

Israeli forces typically destroy entire neighborhoods, claiming they are harboring fighters there, and punish civilians by killing, arresting or making them homeless, residents and activists told Al Jazeera.

“What I saw in the Jenin camp is like Gaza, only on a smaller scale,” said Zaid Shuabi, a Palestinian human rights activist in the West Bank.

“You can't see any roads because they are destroyed. The infrastructure, … the sewage and electricity systems, the water pipes and telecommunications networks are damaged.”

Since January 2023, 88 people have been killed and 104 buildings destroyed in the Jenin camp, according to the UN.

Resistance

Since 2021, a new cohort of armed Palestinian groups has emerged throughout the West Bank. In the Jenin camp, the Jenin Brigades have clashed with Israeli troops in dozens of raids.

The group consists of loosely affiliated fighters with links to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Fatah, according to Tahani Mustafa, an Israel-Palestine expert at the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think tank in Belgium.

“These groups [in Jenin] began as a community defense mechanism, and the more violent the Israeli attacks became and the more systematic [they got]the larger these groups became,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera.

She said the young men who join these groups are reacting to Israel's increasing occupation and are disillusioned with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which administers the occupied West Bank and is viewed by many Palestinians as an auxiliary force of Israel.

The Palestinian Authority has cooperated with Israel on security issues within the framework of the Oslo Accords of 1993 from which it emerged.

Some senior Fatah officials in the Palestinian Authority support and finance some Fatah factions in the Jenin Brigades to increase their influence in any future power struggle for control of the Palestinian Authority, Mustafa added.

The ICG has long warned of a violent succession struggle in the Palestinian Authority if 88-year-old President Mohamad Abbas resigns or dies.

Mustafa said other members of the Jenin Brigades are also part of the Palestinian Authority security forces and receive a monthly salary from them.

“Originally, when the [PA] Security forces were conceived by the Americans and Israelis, the idea was to use the security forces as a means … to disarm radical [fighters] and give them jobs in exchange for laying down their weapons,” she said.

“In the context of the occupation, this is obviously not going to work. Many of these people have a job – a monthly salary – and they still resist.”

“Die with pride”

Some young men join armed groups to earn money. The PIJ pays its members between $1,000 and $3,000 a month, Mustafa says.

The financial incentives have attracted young men from outside the camp.

“Since last July, we have noticed that many of these people come from other areas, … which then leads to a conflict-ridden relationship, because it is one thing when you [a civilian] die for [the actions] your brother or son.

“It’s different when you don’t know who these guys are,” she told Al Jazeera.

Shuabi said Israel was punishing civilians in the camp in the hope that they would turn against the resistance fighters. He explained that Israel was specifically deliberately destroying neighborhoods, roads and houses as part of a broader strategy to gradually expel Palestinians from the Jenin camp.

In July, a major Israeli operation against the camp resulted in the displacement of 3,000 peoplesays the UN.

Those who remained in the camp faced an acute lack of public services after Israel deliberately destroyed water pumps and electricity grids.

Shuabi believes Israel's strategy is backfiring.

More and more young Palestinians are joining resistance groups to avenge their loved ones or protect their families and communities from Israel's attacks, he said.

“Families of martyrs – even if they feel pain – understand why their brothers [or sons] or other family members are involved in the resistance,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Even if they are not a member of the resistance, they are targeted. They think they might as well die with pride by being a member of the resistance.”