Israel has embarked on its largest raid of the occupied West Bank in decades, launching attacks from the land and air against areas home to 80,000 Palestinians as Israel’s foreign minister is pledging “war” using the same genocidal tactics the Israeli military has used on Gaza.
Israel has attacked the West Bank with drone strikes and deployed military vehicles on the ground, with troops opening fire on Palestinians. Israeli forces are shutting down and destroying roads with bulldozers leading to Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas in the northern West Bank, effectively cutting the cities off from the rest of the West Bank. Jenin has a population of roughly 39,000 Palestinians.
The raid is especially sinister as it comes amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which experts say has been an opportunity for Israeli forces to test and hone violence against Palestinians. Alarmingly, Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz pledged that Israeli forces would handle the occupied West Bank the same way it has Gaza — where it has isolated the population and then carried out a genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign of unprecedented proportions.
“We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever other steps are required,” Katz said, seemingly openly threatening to carry out ethnic cleansing of the West Bank as Israel has considered all areas of Gaza to be “terrorist” infrastructure. “This is a full-fledged war and we must win it.”
Experts warn it is clear that Israel is aiming to do what it has done in Gaza to the occupied West Bank. “What’s happening is absolutely horrifying, because what we see here is Israel trying to transfer the genocide war that is conducted in Gaza and the war of ethnic cleansing from Gaza to the West Bank,” Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian physician, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative and West Bank resident, told Democracy Now!. “Their goal is very clear. It’s as the Israeli minister of foreign affairs said: it’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
“What is happening now in the northern West-Bank is the Gazafication of all Palestinian land,” said Palestinian Israeli Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman.
It is unclear how long the raid will last, though the Israeli military has said that the raid on Wednesday is just “the first stages.” Experts point out that it has been a longtime goal of Israeli officials to annex the West Bank, and they have recently accelerated their occupation of the region with a major campaign led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Palestinian health officials have said that Israeli forces have surrounded several hospitals in Jenin and Israeli forces are purposefully obstructing medical teams from reaching injured Palestinians, Medical Aid for Palestinians told Al Jazeera.
Israeli forces are threatening to storm the hospitals, BBC reported, and patients trying to leave the hospital were forced to show their IDs to Israeli forces. In Far’a refugee camp, near Tubas, Israeli forces stormed a medical facility, detaining health care workers and opening fire within the facility.
At least 10 Palestinians have been reported killed so far amid the Israeli raid, which is the largest Israeli raid of the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada roughly 20 years ago when Israel killed over 4,700 Palestinians. Since Israel is blocking ambulances from reaching Palestinians, the death toll could be higher. Israeli officials have reportedly implemented a curfew in parts of the region in order to even further limit Palestinian movement.
Palestinians have been effectively, though not directly, told to evacuate Nur Shams refugee camp, in Tulkarem, as Israeli forces opened a checkpoint giving Palestinians just hours to leave earlier on Wednesday. Just on Tuesday, Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in Nur Shams in an airstrike, including two children and a 20-year-old who was released from Israeli custody as part of the captive exchange in November.
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