The Israeli army killed three Palestinian military commanders – including one from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and two from Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – and a mother and her son during an attack in the occupied West Bank on Monday, according to Palestinian officials. and Israelis.
Several army convoys and bulldozers also raided the Tulkarem refugee camp, where the five were killed, to destroy homes, markets and entire neighborhoods during the attack.
Like the entire West Bank, Tulkarem was the target of attacks by the Israeli army and settlers that intensified after the return of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to command a far-right government at the end of 2022. The devastation caused by these attacks intensified. Even more so after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Israel claims its almost daily strikes are necessary to capture Hamas cells and ensure Israeli security. But critics say the attacks are exacerbating the root causes that fuel armed resistance – in particular, Israel’s decades-long occupation – declared last week illegal by the International Court of Justice.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel killed 203 people in the West Bank between January and June 6 this year. That’s 75 more people killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers compared to the same period last year.
Activists and experts believe that Israel is highlighting the threat of what it calls “terrorism” to justify the growing violence, which is leading to mass displacement and the expansion of illegal settlements.
Here’s everything you need to know about the rise in violence as a result of operations in the West Bank.
How many attacks have there been and who are they targeting?
Israel conducted military strikes in the occupied West Bank almost daily, prior to the current war in Gaza. Israel says the attacks are in the name of maintaining security, but locals say they serve little purpose except to remind them of the realities of living under occupation.
Cities such as Jenin, Tulkarem and the Nur Shams refugee camp are frequently targets of attacks, and shootings with Palestinian gunmen are frequent.
Shadi Abdullah, an activist from the Tulkarem refugee camp, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army typically fires missiles at residential areas, destroys educational centers and hospitals, cuts electricity and kills or injures civilians during almost all attacks.
These same tactics were widely publicized throughout the West Bank and particularly in Jenin, where much of the countryside was reduced to rubble. Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the camp during one such attack in May 2022.
“The Israelis do not distinguish between resistance fighters and civilians,” Abdullah told Al Jazeera
“They are also trying to make areas uninhabitable so that Palestinians migrate from one Palestinian city to another… it is a form of forced displacement,” he added.
Who are the Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank?
Israel has long claimed to target Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions in the West Bank, as well as new independent armed groups that have emerged in recent years.
He recently arrested several Birzeit University students who he said were planning a “significant terrorist attack” against Israeli forces or settlers, according to Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency tasked with monitoring and thwarting internal threats.
“There was a rumor that the student movements were going to start something in the West Bank, but the Israelis don’t care if this is popular resistance or armed resistance. They are not interested in any escalation,” said Tasame Ramadan, a Palestinian activist from the West Bank city of Nablus.
“[Israel] he wants [Palestinians] feel like they are controlled and want them to feel scared for their lives,” she added.
Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG), explained that many young people take up arms or join armed factions to protect themselves and their communities from settler violence – which is increasing without much resistance from part of the military. – and army attacks.
“Whether they are student movements or armed groups, there are pockets of resistance in the West Bank and the idea that they are affiliated with Hamas or supported by Iran is [something Israel plays up] because it fits with notions of what is considered legitimate violence,” she said.
“Frankly, it doesn’t work well for the Western narrative if they learn that most of these fighters are just Fatah constituents, disenfranchised and disillusioned.”
Fatah is a major Palestinian faction that controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), the entity charged with governing most of the West Bank.
Are the colonists involved?
Yes, and often.
Jewish settlers consistently attack entire Palestinian villages as they seek to expand the territory under their possession in the West Bank. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank see the land as an integral part of the land of Israel – and the Palestinians as an obstacle in their path.
Although settlers regularly carry out attacks against Palestinians without any prior justification, they engage in particularly aggressive attacks if their own settlements have been attacked.
In April, an Israeli teenager was found dead in the occupied West Bank, triggering a wave of vigilante and armed attacks by illegal settlers. The violence led to the death of a 17-year-old Palestinian boy and several injuries.
“Settlers are always protected by the army,” Abdullah said.
He added that security forces and settlers invoke “terrorism” as a justification for attacking Palestinians, displacing them from their villages and stealing their land.
Why doesn’t the AP protect its constituents?
Because it does not want to overturn the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was born out of this agreement, which saw then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shake hands with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the US White House lawn.
The agreements were supposed to pave the way for a Palestinian state, but instead they resulted only in the establishment of close security coordination between the PA and Israel.
Furthermore, the agreements effectively chained the PA, Tahani said. As a governing body, it is unable to protect its constituents from Israeli soldiers and combative settlers who violate its jurisdiction over large swaths of the West Bank.
“No matter fighting settlers or Israeli soldiers, the PA doesn’t even make arrests,” Tahani told Al Jazeera. “Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction over the Israelis… so what are [Palestinians] should do?”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
