By Sharon Zhang / Truthout
Israel has launched its biggest assault on the occupied West Bank in decades, attacking areas home to 80,000 Palestinians from land and air while Israel’s foreign minister declares a “war” using the same genocidal tactics the Israeli military used in Gaza.
Israel has attacked the West Bank with drone strikes and stationed military vehicles on the ground while troops have opened fire on Palestinians. Israeli forces are blocking and using bulldozers to destroy roads leading to Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas in the northern West Bank, effectively cutting the towns off from the rest of the West Bank. About 39,000 Palestinians live in Jenin.
The attack is particularly ominous because it comes amid the genocide in Gaza, which experts say offers Israeli forces an opportunity to test and refine violence against Palestinians. Worryingly, Foreign Minister Israel Katz has promised that Israeli forces would act in the occupied West Bank the same way they did in Gaza – where they isolated the population and then carried out genocide and ethnic cleansing on an unprecedented scale.
“We must deal with this threat in the same way we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any other steps necessary,” Katz said, apparently openly threatening ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, as Israel considers all areas of Gaza to be “terrorist” infrastructure. “This is a full-blown war and we must win it.”
Experts warn that Israel appears to be pursuing the same goal as in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. “What is happening is absolutely appalling, because we are seeing Israel trying to transfer the genocidal war being waged in Gaza and the war of ethnic cleansing from Gaza to the West Bank,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian doctor, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative and a West Bank resident. Democracy now!“Their goal is very clear. It is, as the Israeli foreign minister said: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.”
“What is currently happening in the northern West Bank is the Gazafication of the entire Palestinian land,” said Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman.
It is unclear how long the assault will last, but the Israeli military has said Wednesday’s attack was only “the first stage.” Experts point out that annexing the West Bank has long been a goal of the Israeli government, and they recently accelerated their occupation of the region with a major campaign led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Palestinian health officials have said that Israeli forces have surrounded several hospitals in Jenin and that Israeli forces are deliberately preventing medical teams from reaching injured Palestinians, Medical Aid for Palestinians said. Al-Jazeera.
Israeli forces threaten to storm the hospitals. BBC reported, and patients who wanted to leave the hospital were forced to show their ID cards to Israeli forces. In the Far’a refugee camp near Tubas, Israeli forces stormed a medical facility, arrested medical personnel and opened fire inside the facility.
At least 10 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in the Israeli attack so far. It is the largest Israeli attack in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada some 20 years ago, when Israel killed over 4,700 Palestinians. With Israel blocking ambulances from reaching Palestinians, the death toll could be even higher. Israeli officials have reportedly imposed a curfew in parts of the region to further restrict Palestinians’ movement.
Palestinians were effectively, if not directly, ordered to vacate the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem when Israeli forces opened a checkpoint on Wednesday, giving Palestinians just hours to leave the camp. Just on Tuesday, Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in an airstrike in Nur Shams, including two children and a 20-year-old who was released from Israeli custody as part of the prisoner exchange in November.
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Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news editor at Truth about politics, climate and work. Before we get to TruthSharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republicand more. She has a Master’s degree in Environmental Science. You can find her on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.
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