Israeli forces forcibly displace Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Here’s what we know:
- Israeli soldiers forced dozens of Palestinians to flee their homes in eastern Tulkarem, and seized several buildings to be used as barracks, during their ongoing raid on Tulkarem and its adjoining refugee camps, Wafa reports.
- Israeli forces demolish a Palestinian man’s two-storey home in the town of Sur Baher, southeast of occupied Jerusalem.
- Israeli soldiers raided the town of Silwad and the village of Deir Nidham, near Ramallah.
- Israeli forces stormed the eastern part of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, from the Elon Moreh checkpoint, Al Jazeera Arabic reports.
Israel to recognise 13 more illegal settlements in West Bank
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel is planning to “recognise” 13 more settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory, despite them being considered illegal under international law.
“The move is taking place against the backdrop of the approval of tens of thousands of housing units in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said in a post on X, using an Israeli term to refer to the occupied West Bank.
“We continue to lead a revolution of normalisation and regulation in settlement,” he said. “Instead of hiding and apologising – we raise the flag, build and settle. This is another important step on the path to de facto sovereignty,” he added.
Smotrich has long pushed for Israel to “annex” the occupied West Bank, last year pledging to bring a million new settlers to live there.
Hamas slams Israeli plan to normalise West Bank settlements
The Palestinian group has issued a statement condemning Israel’s plans to formally recognise 13 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, calling it a “racist replacement project”.
The planned settlement recognition, announced by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich this morning, is part of Israel’s efforts to “steal [Palestinian] land and sacred sites and impose a hateful system of apartheid, in blatant violation of all international and humanitarian laws and conventions”, Hamas said.
The group called on “Arab and Islamic nations, and the free people of the world” to speak out against the settlement expansion.
‘Entire neighbourhoods’ pushed out during ongoing Israeli assault
The scenes of mass forced displacement are also repeating in the occupied West Bank. More than 44,000 Palestinians have been displaced there since the beginning of January; over half are from the Tulkarem area.
Overnight and throughout yesterday, Israeli soldiers forced entire families and neighbourhoods in Tulkarem city to leave their homes at very short notice. That means they could only flee with whatever they could carry in their hands.
The infrastructure in that city has been completely upended by more than 40 days of Israeli military assault. Those incursions continue. The Israeli military says it will carry out attacks throughout the occupied West Bank for much of this year.
Israel’s Smotrich: ‘We raise the flag, build and settle’
Earlier we reported that Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to separate 13 Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from their neighbouring communities.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry criticised the approval of the separation of the neighbourhoods and their recognition as independent settlements as disregarding international legitimacy and resolutions.
Israel’s pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of US President Donald Trump.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – head of the far-right Religious Zionism party and a key partner in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition – has for years called for Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.
The settlements will ultimately be recognised as independent, Smotrich posted on X about the move, which follows the approval of tens of thousands of housing units across Palestinian territory.
“Instead of hiding and apologising – we raise the flag, build and settle,” he said.
