Not Held Accountable for Gaza, IDF Launches Largest Attack on West Bank in Decades
Israeli forces on Wednesday conducted a series of deadly raids in the West Bank, killing at least 10 Palestinians in the largest assault on the occupied territory in over two decades.
In coordinated raids on four cities in the northern West Bank, Israel employed hundreds of ground troops as well as fighter aircraft, drones, and bulldozers. Israel Katz, Israel's foreign minister, indicated that this was a planned escalation, saying the military was operating in "full force." He called for evacuations in the West Bank, as in Gaza, and "whatever steps are required," explaining that "this is a war for everything and we must win it."
The incursion follows a recent uptick in Israeli violence in the West Bank—5 Palestinians, including two children, were killed in an airstrike there on Monday—and came on the same day that the United Nations Human Rights Office released a statement condemning it.
Humanitarian and pro-Palestinian voices denounced Wednesday's offensive. Aida Touma-Suleiman, an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset, called it the "Gazafication of all Palestinian land" and part of a plan to "ethnically cleanse the West Bank."
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician and politician, toldDemocracy Now! that Israeli leaders, some of whom he named as "fascist," are "trying to repeat the Nakba."
"They are trying to repeat the same ethnic cleansing, the same genocide that is committed in Gaza," he added.
Progressives in the U.S., Israel's primary diplomatic ally and arms supplier, argued that Wednesday's incursion was the direct result of American foreign policy choices.
"This is the predictable culmination of the actions of an Israeli regime that has been fully empowered, armed, supported, and encouraged by the Biden-Harris administration in its genocidal war," Jeremy Scahill, a co-founder of The Intercept who recently formed a new investigative outlet called Drop Site News, wrote on social media.
"Israel has received the message from Biden and Harris loud and clear for almost 11 months: There is no scale of war crimes too great for the administration to take any meaningful steps to stop Israel’s mass slaughter operations," Scahill added, referring to U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic presidential nominee.
Israeli raids on the cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, and Tulkarem began early Wednesday. Al Jazeerareported that it was the largest Israeli incursion into the West Bank since 2002.
The Israeli military said that the Palestinians who were killed in the West Bank were "armed terrorists who posed a threat to security forces." Israeli media reports indicated that the raids are expected to continue for several days.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement relayed to Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Israeli forces had disrupted medical and emergency services at several locations in the West Bank. Israeli forces stormed the Al-Far'a refugee camp, detained the PRCS team there, and cut off their communications, according to PRCS.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza since 1967. The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion last month declaring the occupation of these Palestinian territories unlawful, saying it must end "as rapidly as possible."
Most of the world's nations have long declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law, a position that Israel disputes. Settler violence has increased markedly since October 7 under cover of the even greater carnage in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. Hamas and allied militant groups killed more than 1,100 Israelis in a brutal massacre on October 7.
In the West Bank, where nightly raids have become commonplace, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 646 people over the last 11 months, including 148 children, according to Palestinian health officials.
In addition to the military raid that killed five on Monday, an Israeli settler or reservist attack in Wadi Rahal village reportedly led to a Palestinian man being shot in the back, according to the United Nations' news service.
Omar Baddar, a Middle East political analyst, argued that Wednesday's incursion was part of a longstanding Israeli plan.
"I think the context of it is worth noting, which is the fact that Israel has been intending to annex and ethnically cleanse huge parts of the West Bank for a very, very long time," Baddar told Al Jazeera.
In its condemnation of Israeli aggression in the West Bank, the U.N. Human Rights Office wrote that the situation "could worsen dramatically if [Israeli security forces] continue to systematically use unlawful lethal force and ignore violence perpetrated by settlers."
The agency warned of "extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings and destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure," and said that the settler violence was made possible by political support from Israel's leadership.
"The U.N. Human Rights Office has reported for years on settlers attacking Palestinian communities in their land in the West Bank with impunity," the statement says. "This longstanding trend has dramatically escalated since October 7, as the settler movement, with political backing at the highest levels of Israeli government, has seized the opportunity to escalate attacks against Palestinians, forcing them to leave their lands, and expand settlements and Israel's control over the West Bank."
The assault on the West Bank has not stopped Israel from continuing its assault on Gaza. Israeli forces killed eight Gazans in a strike on a school-turned-shelter in eastern Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeerareported.
Edward Carver is a staff writer for Common Dreams.