West Bank on brink of eruption

The Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has temporarily stopped since November 24 after reaching a Qatari/Egyptian-brokered truce between Hamas and Israel for four days; however, the Israeli aggression on Palestinians has not stopped in the West Bank and Jerusalem, pushing these occupied lands to the brink of eruption.

Over this period up to date, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank rose to 232, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced on Saturday. Several clashes and Israeli raids on Palestinian cities like Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin have been taking place on a daily basis. At dawn on Sunday, seven citizens were killed after Israeli occupation soldiers opened fire at them in a raid on the West Bank, including five in the Jenin refugee camp.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society documented 2,070 arrests in the West Bank and Jerusalem during the month of October, including 145 children and more than 55 women. The head of the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission said Israel has arrested about 3,200 citizens from the West Bank and Jerusalem since October 7.

Physician Shamekh Kamal Abu Al-Rub (25 years old) was killed, and his brother Muhammad and another young man were injured by bullets, during clashes in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, on November 25. Two weeks earlier, four Palestinian fighters belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Aqsa Brigades were assassinated by Israel in cooperation with two Palestinian agents, who were later killed on November 24.

A few hours before the beginning of the Hamas-Israel humanitarian pause and prisoner swap deal on November 24, Israel arrested 15 Palestinian citizens from Nablus, Hebron, Salfit and Tulkarm, in addition to arresting a number of Gaza workers from the town of Tarqumiya and Hebron over only 24 hours, reported Palestinian journalists on their Telegram accounts.

On November 23, Israeli forces arrested five young men at a checkpoint between the villages of Yanun and Aqraba in Nablus after checking their phones and assaulting them. On the same day, a young Palestinian man, Amer Nizar Khairallah, from Tulkarm Camp, died after being shot by occupation soldiers a few days earlier.

In response, confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters like the Al-Quda Brigades and Lions’ Den have increased. On November 18, Lions’ Den claimed responsibility for carrying out more than 14 shooting operations in Nablus and its surrounding areas, while the branch of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in Tulkarm announced on November 23 that their fighters killed a group of Israeli ground soldiers.

“There are daily incursions into Palestinian cities and villages as the Israeli occupation forces pursue the resistance fighters […] in order to kill or arrest them,” said Samer Hamad, a Palestinian citizen in the West Bank, in an interview with Jusoot Post.

He added that Israeli forces recently used aircraft more than 12 times in the West Bank’s Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Balata refugee camps. He revealed that Israeli forces are dividing the West Bank into “ghettos” and cutting the West Bank by military checkpoints or gates that they erect at the entrances to cities and between Palestinian villages.

In Addition to the Israeli forces’ attacks against Palestinians on a daily basis, Israeli settler groups have also carried out intense attacks during the last period after they were armed, killing a large number of Palestinians, especially during the olive harvest season, Hamad said.

Regarding the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Hamad said that six prisoners have been killed since the beginning of October due to the difficult conditions the prisoners are subjected to and the lack of commitment to international laws that guarantee the rights of prisoners in detention centers.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli forces have closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque to Palestinian worshippers for the seventh Friday since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza, Hamad said.

As for the two-state solution, Hamad said that Israel is not concerned with implementing the United Nations resolutions regarding this solution, but is instead working on committing crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip. He added that the goal is for there to be only one state, the Israeli occupation state, under American cover, with a policy of apartheid and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, therefore killing the two-state solution.

In response to a question about the Israeli threats to the Palestinians and their calls to move from the West Bank to Jordan, Hamad stressed that the issue of displacement is useless because Israeli stages of intimidation and use of force have become ineffective.

Meanwhile, Hamad said that the Palestinian Authority, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, cannot do more than make speeches, because it has lost the confidence of the Palestinian people and even the ruling Fatah movement.

“The Palestinian Authority is a de facto authority that lacks legitimacy and the confidence of the Palestinian popularity […] The Authority is not performing its leadership role and is required to involve all Palestinians through real elections for the Palestinian National Council, which represents all Palestinians,” he explained.

In reply to a question of whether the Palestinian public strikes can impact the situation and increase pressure on Israel, Hamad said, “Strikes as a means of protest have become inappropriate […], especially in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority.”

“There has been disagreement recently about the feasibility of a strike as a means of protest, but its effectiveness has been limited with the development of resistance acts in the West Bank during the last three years,” he said, adding, “The situation in the West Bank is on the brink of eruption on a daily basis […] Perhaps in the next few days there will be more cumulative and powerful resistance actions.”