Violence escalates in West Bank

On Wednesday, the Israeli military launched its largest and deadliest West Bank offensive of the year, killing at least 16 people in a matter of days, including a senior militia commander. Violence in the West Bank — perpetrated by the military, Israeli settlers and Palestinian fighters — has been steadily increasing over the past 10 months.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, at least 660 Palestinians and 15 Israelis More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the United Nations. That’s less than the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past 10 months, but it’s still a reminder of the severity of the ongoing violence in the West Bank.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Israeli military has launched several attacks on Palestinian refugee camps. Latest Operations Starting early Wednesday morning: Air force and ground forces targeted Tulkarm in the northwest, Jenin on the northern border, and the Farah refugee camp. Located in the eastern part of the regionIsrael’s security agency Shin Bet, which is part of Israel’s intelligence organization, and Israel’s border police also took part in the raid, ostensibly targeting what Israeli officials called “terrorist infrastructure.”

Israel claimed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Mohammad Jaber and Hamas commander Wasim Hazem, along with other militants, were killed in the attack. Israeli officials accused Hazem of conspiracy. Along with other militias, they launched attacks in the West Bank. Like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad also participated in the October 7 attack; both groups also claimed responsibility for the attack. The suicide attack in Tel Aviv earlier this month, One Israeli was injured.

“If you think about it from this tactical perspective, the suicide bomber is most likely to come from the West Bank, not Gaza, probably because Gaza is already a war zone,” Raphael Cohen, director of the RAND Corporation’s Air Force Program’s strategy and doctrine program, told Vox, adding that Hamas officials have called for increased suicide attacks on Israeli territory, which may be part of the motivation for Israel’s recent actions.

More Palestinians in the West Bank are also taking up arms, partly out of anger and fear over the brutal destruction of Gaza, but also because of increasingly violent and horrific military raids and attacks by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Saif al-Akir, a youth leader of the Fatah political group, told The Washington Post that Jaber was radicalized by repeated Israeli attacks on the West Bank, saying: “The environment he lives in has made him this way.”

As part of the operation this week, Israeli forces blocked and destroyed roads and sealed off entrances to hospitals. According to eyewitnessesThe Israeli military has denied it was preventing people from accessing medical facilities.

The West Bank is located east of Israel, bordering Jordan and the western shore of the Dead Sea. Jordan controlled the area until 1967; Israel then occupied the area and kept it under military occupation until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, when the area was divided into three “areas” supposedly controlled by the Palestinian Authority. However, Israeli Jewish settlements in the area Palestinian expansion has accelerated, and Israeli troops have moved in to protect them. Now, the Palestinian Authority, a nominal government, has little real control over the West Bank.

Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank are considered occupied territories under international law, so Israel has an obligation to protect the people living there. Israel denies occupying Palestinian land, but just last month, International Court of Justice It ruled that Israel had occupied Palestinian land and that the occupation should end immediately.

Under the order, which is enforced by the United Nations Security Council, “Israel must withdraw its forces from all occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip, and remove all settlers from the West Bank, including illegally annexed East Jerusalem,” said Erica Guevara-Rosas, senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty International. In a statementIsrael’s allies on the Security Council, including the United States, have not yet indicated they intend to implement the court’s ruling.

This allows Israel to continue its war in the Gaza Strip and traps Palestinians living in the West Bank in a cycle of violence: At least five large-scale Israeli military operations Settler violence has also increased in the West Bank since October 7.

According to Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer who specializes in international human rights law, these settlers are Israelis — often aligned with the country’s right wing and often “heavily armed.”

They keep expanding the number of settlements onto land that the United Nations says is off-limits to Israel. Israel calls the settlements “illegal,” but it has not stopped people from building outposts, nor has it stopped them from building Forcing Palestinians off their homes and landSome settlers have begun Closer to the cityThe Israeli government also often subsidizes the settlements, providing them with higher-quality infrastructure, roads, water, and schools than the government provides to Palestinian villages.

Some Palestinians Take up arms against these settlersIsrael has responded by sending more troops, and in what seems to be an inevitable cycle.

“There’s no military presence in these cities[in the West Bank]but the military has been conducting these attacks, so these[militant]groups emerge,” Jost Hiltermann, Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, told Vox. “So the military responds to these groups, and you see an escalation.”

The city of Jenin and refugee camps on its outskirts were the sites of fighting this week. Frequent Target Because, as Buttu explained, they and the entire Gaza Strip are the main strongholds of Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories.

Overall, there are few signs that the militants or Israel will change their strategy in the West Bank, and some countries—particularly France and the United Kingdom — Fears that escalating violence could turn the West Bank into another Gaza.