Israel carries out raids and demolitions, arrests dozens across West Bank
The Israeli military has launched raids and interrogations ensnaring more than 80 people across the occupied West Bank, wounding at least one man and demolishing the home of another as Israel escalates its attacks on the Palestinian territory in tandem with its ongoing genocidal war in Gaza.
In one incident on Thursday, Israeli forces surrounded a home in Dura, south of the city of Hebron, before shooting and wounding the brother of Mahmoud al-Fasfous. The al-Fasfous brothers have long been wanted by Israeli forces and have faced frequent raids of the family home and soldier assaults.
In another raid in Hebron’s Khallat Nafisa area, Israeli forces sealed off the area from civilians before destroying the home of Imran al-Atrash with a bulldozer, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Israeli forces killed al-Atrash and another Palestinian, Walid Muhammad Khalil Sabarna, in mid-November when the duo was accused of carrying out a car-ramming and stabbing attack that killed one Israeli settler and injured three.
The Israeli military posted photos of the demolition on Telegram, claiming that al-Atrash was a “terrorist” and cheering the effort to destroy his home.
Escalating arrest campaign
Elsewhere in Hebron and the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained and interrogated at least 80 Palestinians during overnight and dawn raids, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reported.
At least one woman and two children were among those detained along with former prisoners.
“This represents an unprecedented escalation since the beginning of the year, described as part of a campaign of collective punishment,” the group said, adding that field interrogations have “become the occupation’s most prominent policy”.
Two arrests took place during a raid on the Arroub refugee camp, located north of Hebron, with other arrests under way in virtually all areas surrounding the city, Wafa reported.
In the al-Majaz community of Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets in the South Hebron Hills, Israeli forces plundered homes before converting one into a military outpost, forcing its inhabitants to spend the night outside in the cold.
Meanwhile, in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, soldiers stormed the town of Kobar and fanned out across multiple neighbourhoods.
Townspeople told Al Jazeera that the soldiers tried to provoke residents by shouting: “Who wants to become a martyr? Where are the cowards?”
