Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered yet another escalation of Israel’s military assault of the occupied West Bank after a series of bus explosions in Israel. It is currently unclear who was responsible for the explosions.
Just hours after the explosions on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office wrote on social media that the prime minister has ordered an “intensive operation” to be carried out in the West Bank, after conducting a “security assessment” on the attack with other Israeli officials. The prime minister also visited Tulkarm refugee camp after the attack, bragging that the military is “leveling entire streets” in the region.
“What we have witnessed yesterday — an attempt to perpetrate a series of terrorist attacks with mass casualties — is a very severe situation,” his office said on X. “In response, we have augmented the forces in [the West Bank], in accordance with my directive and that of the Minister of Defense.”
On Thursday evening, three buses exploded in an Israeli parking depot. The buses and lots were empty, and nobody was injured by the explosions. Israeli police reportedly found two more undetonated bombs in the region, and claimed that the bombs were originally supposed to go off on full buses on Friday, but had been detonated early.
No group has taken responsibility for the attack. Police arrested two Israelis on Friday in connection to the attacks, Haaretz reports, but a court has issued a gag order on the media on further information.
Despite the lack of a clear perpetrator, however, Israeli authorities and media were quick to point fingers, and the Israeli military imposed new restrictions on Palestinians’ movement in the West Bank as a result. The Israeli military is also deploying three additional battalions to the West Bank.
The escalation comes as Israel has already been carrying out an intense assault on the occupied West Bank, with “Operation Iron Wall” in Jenin having entered its second month.
Forced displacement in the West Bank is at a high, with at least 40,000 Palestinians displaced by Israel’s operation in the northern part of the region, the UN has said. Experts say this is the highest amount of displacement in the West Bank since the 1967 Naksa, when Israel seized a huge swath of historic Palestine and displaced an estimated 300,000 Palestinians from their homes.
Israel’s escalation has killed at least 26 Palestinians in Jenin since January 21. This includes numerous children, like 10-year-old Saddam Hussein Iyad Mohammad Rajab, who was shot and killed in Tulkarm by an Israeli soldier.
Meanwhile, Israel has been carrying out widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in the region, deploying bulldozers in Tulkarem refugee camp to demolish homes, roads and other infrastructure. Jenin’s mayor has said that the goal seems to be to render Jenin “uninhabitable.”
Human rights experts have warned that Israel is using tactics in the occupied West Bank that the military honed during its genocide in Gaza, where Israel has destroyed over 90 percent of homes — leaving nothing for displaced Palestinians to return to even if they’re allowed to go back home.
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