Escalation in the West Bank: the army kills 4 Palestinians and gunmen kill an Israeli
Tension increased in the West Bank with the Israeli army killing 4 Palestinians in several areas, before Palestinian militants responded by killing an Israeli on a highway in an armed operation, after which settlers blocked roads and attacked the Arab cities.
At dawn on Thursday, the Israeli army stormed several areas of the West Bank and clashed with protesters. Yazan Shiha (23 years old) and the child Ayham Al-Shafi’i (14 years old) were shot dead during the assault on the city of Al-Bireh in Ramallah, and Qusay Qaraan (19 years old) was killed during the assault on the town Qalqilya, and the child Hamdan Hamdan (14 years old) in the village of Zawata, west of Nablus, and about 70 Palestinians were arrested.
After the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, conducted by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Israeli army launched massive daily incursions in the West Bank, which inflamed tension in the region, which the United States has if warned, they would turn into a third front in the current war.
“The excuse to avoid tensions”
Israel raised the alarm in the West Bank after the Hamas operation, closing down towns and villages, turning them into ghettos, daily killing and arresting and arming settlers, under the pretext that it fears escalation of tensions in the West Bank. After the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the army killed 134 Palestinians in the West Bank, arrested about 1,800 and shot more than 2,000.
In an operation that Israelis fear could be the start of a movement in the West Bank, Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. The Israeli army reported that some gunmen opened fire near the “Ainab” settlement at an Israeli vehicle, wounding its driver, before it overturned, then its forces began chasing the offenders and closed roads in the area.
The army confirmed that it was “very busy fighting terrorism in Judea and Samaria (the biblical name for the West Bank)”, and the operation was carried out at the crossroads of the city of Beit Leed, which the Israeli army took assault together with the cities of Safarin and Anabta, east of Tulkarem.
The attack occurred against a backdrop of growing tension in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, reinforcing American, European and Israeli fears of entering the West Bank on the war front.
Shin Bet investigation
It was revealed on Thursday that Israeli security services arrested two Palestinians in their 20s last month, residents of the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, on suspicion of being involved in planning “a combined operation after contact with a terrorist organization,” according to a police statement.
The investigation, conducted by the Shin Bet and the Jerusalem Prosecutor’s Office, shows that the two contacted activists of an armed organization in the West Bank and planned, with their help, to carry out a joint fire attack, attracting the police forces, and detonating explosive devices in an apartment in the Shuafat refugee camp. To this end they intended to purchase weapons and had already purchased various materials and components to prepare explosive devices in the apartment where they were staying.
Investigators from the Jerusalem Police Station and explosives experts said they found various chemical materials, containers, operating instructions for preparing the devices and various components which, according to the suspects, would soon be transformed into explosive devices for the purpose of being used in the attack. joint attack.
Warns the Israeli “War Council”.
Israel’s General Security Service, the Shin Bet, had warned the “War Council” in Israel of the outbreak of violence in the West Bank, and the United States and France had also warned that the situation in the West Bank had reached a boiling point. . The Shin Bet said burning the West Bank would help inflame the region and damage the war effort against Hamas.
The Shin Bet, as well as US President Joe Biden, had highlighted the official Israeli escalation on the one hand and the settler violence on the other. It was also underlined that the step taken by the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir to widely distribute weapons into the hands of Jews, in light of the Hamas attack and its repercussions on Israeli society, in addition to the climate of revenge, contributed to strengthening the feeling that everything is available and that this is the golden opportunity to pounce on the Arab inhabitants of the nearby villages.
After Thursday’s attack, the head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank, Yossi Dagan, called for a complete closure of roads for Palestinians, then extremist settlers attacked Palestinians in the village of Deir Sharaf, west of Nablus , and attacked the Palestinians. fire to cars, commercial structures and land planted with olive trees, which led to clashes in the area resulting in several injuries.
Road closures
Settlers also closed roads in the northern West Bank, attacked passing Palestinian vehicles and set fire to land in the village of Jit, south of Nablus. Video footage showed clashes between the Israeli army and settlers after trying to stop them from advancing towards Arab villages.
These attacks are not the first by settlers in the West Bank: since October 7, settlers have killed 6 Palestinians, while the Israeli organization Yesh Din said that more than 100 incidents of violence and attacks by settlers against Palestinians have occurred. verified in at least 62 Palestinian countries. cities and villages in the West Bank after the Hamas attack in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.