Worsening violence
Israel deployed attack helicopters and drones in raids across the northern West Bank for a second consecutive day, as a months-long crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied territory intensified. Israeli troops continued to lay siege to large swaths of the northeastern Tubas governorate on Thursday, a day after they launched a wide-scale military operation in the area.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least 25 Palestinians have been injured and 100 others have been detained since the Israeli incursion began on Wednesday.
Israel has said the operation aims to root out Palestinian armed groups, but residents say the military has carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, blocked journalists and ambulances, and damaged infrastructure.
Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have faced a surge of Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and top human rights groups have said is a genocide. The northern West Bank has been particularly hard-hit, with about 32,000 residents of several refugee camps in the area forced out of their homes since January and prevented by Israel from returning.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said the forced eviction of Palestinians from Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted,” a HRW official said in a statement.
Palestinians are forced out of their homes during an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp, November 27
Violence part of ‘cruel system of apartheid’
On Thursday evening, Al Jazeera’s Odeh noted that the number of daily Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank has doubled over the past two years. “There are, on average, 47 Israeli raids on Palestinian communities every day,” she said.
Scores of Palestinians, including an 85-year-old man, were beaten by Israeli soldiers during this week’s military assault, Odeh added.
“[This raid] is more severe than other raids that are happening across the occupied West Bank. It is certainly the Israeli army flexing its muscle,” she said. “What we’re seeing is an escalated level of violence meted out to civilians.”
A representative for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned the latest violence, noting that Israel continues to issue demolition orders in the northern West Bank despite “relentless” destruction over the past year.
Twelve buildings are slated for demolition in Jenin refugee camp later this week, Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs for the West Bank, said in a social media post. Another 11 buildings are set to be partially demolished.
