2023-12-02 19:15:05
In the West Bank busyNo one can make plans. Since October 7, no movement is assured. In most cases, leaving the city is an odyssey. In others, it becomes a death sentence. He Israeli army closes road checkpoints without prior notice. In turn, the sporadic actions of the colonists Blocking roads or attacking Palestinian travelers with stones or weapons, they continue turning a deaf ear to their authority. More of 248 Palestinians have been shot dead by both soldiers and settlers who, in recent weeks, have consolidated in a single threat, with more and more armed and uniformed settlers, and seamless military protection for those who still dress in civilian clothes. For Israel, with many of its troops deployed in the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank is already another key front in its deadliest war.
Even its most faithful ally warns Israel of the dangers of the current situation. During his third visit since the start of the conflict, this Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked the Hebrew authorities to take “immediate measures to hold those responsible.” extremist settlers for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.” Early last month, US President, Joe Bidenthreatened ban visas to violent settlers. After reviewing Israel’s most obvious aggressions against the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian journalist and political analyst, Mariam Barghoutihas denounced in Al Jazeera that “the effort of israeli ethnic cleansing has spread to the occupied West Bank, where it is advancing a similar, although more surreptitious, plan.
Throughout the occupied West Bank, claims are coming that confirm these accusations. “The settlers throw stones at my sheep when we are grazing, because They want to expel us from our land and place an outpost, but we have centenary papers that confirm that this land belongs to us,” denounces the elderly pastor Ali Abu Mahzi from the Jordan Valley. Further north, in a refugee camp in Nablus, Saleh Abu Salehjoins the criticism: “Israelis don’t care if you are part of an armed group or if you carry weapons, they are going to create problems for you just because you are palestinian“. In Ramallahwhere calm is usually the norm, tension is palpable in the environment, coexisting with the resignation. The kilometer-long queues on the roads to access any point have worsened since the Israeli Army has closed some of the access control posts to the Palestinian administrative capital.
Settler impunity
Since October 7, 828 Palestinians, including 313 children, have been expelled from more than 13 Palestinian communities in Area C, under full Israeli control. In the first month of the war, the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din documented a total of 185 violent incidents by settlers in the occupied territories, including the murder of seven Palestinians. “Settler violence has intensified over the last month under the cover of war with the aim of changing the reality on the ground in the West Bank,” they denounced. In the first eight months of 2023, there were an average of three settler violent incidents per day, one more than the previous year. Since October 7, they are seven a dayaccording to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Furthermore, the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvirhas instructed senior police officers in the Judea and Samaria district, biblical names used by Israeli authorities, to refrain from enforcing the law against far-right groups that committed crimes against Palestinians. For their part, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, the Hebrew authorities have put all their resources into preventing a repeat of “unity intifada”, such as that of May 2021 between Palestinians from Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza following another fierce offensive against the Strip. In the first two weeks from October 7, attacks perpetrated tripled by Palestinian armed groups, while protests in solidarity with the enclave took place.
Despite the releases of 200 prisoners, women and children alone, in recent days, thousands of Palestinians have been detained in the last two months, bringing the number of inmates to 7.000. The raids and incursions of the Israeli Army are repeated without consequences, especially in the refugee camps of the northern West Bank. He October 22For the first time since the Second Intifada, the Israeli air force attacked bombings this area, reducing a mosque in the Jenin countryside to rubble. But not only does the Army bring out all its artillery every day to punish the native population, but also the arman authorities to residents of illegal settlements under international law.
“Multifront war”
“While Israel is focused on its justified fight against Hamas in Gaza, it cannot fail to address what is happening in the West Bank, where settler violence threatens the integrity of democracy and security of Israel,” denounces the analyst Alex Ledermanin the magazine Time. “A responsible Israeli government would address Israel’s challenge in the West Bank as the battle on two fronts what it really is: against Palestinian and Jewish violence alike,” he adds. But the warnings prior to this unprecedented escalation of violence against the broad and unpunished freedom that the settlers enjoyed in occupied land have been ignored by political leaders like Ben Gvir or the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich. They themselves are settlers, they dominate the institutions, they have been arrested for their violence in the past and it depends on their support that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahustay in power.
A couple of weeks ago, officials from the Biden Administration They warned their senior Israeli counterparts that the situation in the West Bank was about to explode and that the Palestinian Authority could lose control of the major cities there. The former Minister of Defense and current member of the emergency government, Benny Gantz, has recognized that his country is fighting a “multifront war.” A month earlier, the Israeli military spokesman, Jonathan Conricusaccused Hamas in Reuters of trying to “plunge Israel into a war of two or three fronts”, also referring to the Lebanese border. After two months immersed in active conflict, Israeli authorities are confident that the events of May 2021 will not be repeated or, at the very least, will not be repeated on the same scale. This 2023, the armed resistance in the West Bank, although it is more alive than in the last two decades, was already damaged by the continuous aggressions against the Palestinians, with more than 220 lives taken before October 7 in the deadliest year since the Second Intifada.
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