Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank have carried out a number of brutal executions against Palestinian civilians across the territory, after deciding to once again operate undercover units inside the city of Jenin. The ferocity of the onslaughts then led to two fatal shooting attacks against Israeli settlers. Instead of attempting to remedy the situation on the ground, Israel’s top ally, the United States, is prioritizing a push towards an unlikely Saudi-Israeli normalization deal.
In early July, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his defense minister Yoav Gallant, ordered their armed forces to launch an assault on the Jenin refugee camp. The attack resulted in 12 Palestinian deaths, 8 of which were members of the Jenin Brigades armed group, the rest were civilians. Tel Aviv officially admitted to the death of one special forces soldier, while video evidence seemed to corroborate local Palestinian claims that they had killed 4 Israelis soldiers — this statistic is based upon videos appearing to show dead soldiers in body bags. Although Israel’s primary objective in Jenin was unclear, analysts working for Hebrew media asserted that the purpose of the limited invasion was to weaken or dismantle the armed groups in the West Bank city. Instead of managing to weaken the groups, the Jenin Brigades managed to survive and claim victory after repelling military incursions from reaching the center of the refugee camp.
Following the invasion of Jenin, which had brought with it the targeting of water and electrical infrastructure (roundly considered a war crime) forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes, the task of tackling the armed groups was outsource to the Palestinian Authority’s Security Forces (PASF). A number of Jenin Brigades fighters were arrested by the PASF, leading to clashes between stone throwing protesters and PA forces that have on numerous occasions fired tear gas at their fellow Palestinians. The agitation also spread to the city of Tulkarem last week, following the arrest of two Palestinian fighters, that were detained by the PASF, despite having not broken any Palestinian law, leading to mass street protests against the Palestinian Authority’s work on behalf of Israel.
Members of an Israeli undercover unit disguised as Palestinians violently arrests a Palestinian youth in Jenin. pic.twitter.com/a5Yyq2zK4E
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) August 18, 2023
Last week, an undercover Israeli unit was again discovered to have penetrated the Jenin area in a van registered as belonging to Palestinians, which signaled that the Zionist armed forces are no longer taking a backseat inside the city, as they had done for around a month following the largest West Bank military operation in 20 years. PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, was cleared in mid-July to visit the Jenin refugee camp, where he was met with a small supporting crowd and chants in support of the Jenin Brigades instead of the PA. Earlier this year, US security coordinator, Michael Fenzel, set forth a plan under which the PA would take the initiative in dismantling the Palestinian armed groups that have formed over the past two years; under this plan, a special Palestinian unit was set to be trained in Jordan and was to be tasked with directly combating the armed groups on Israel’s behalf. It is unclear as to whether or not this plan has been acted upon yet.
On August 6, three Palestinians were assassinated while driving in a civilian car, after an Israeli special forces unit opened fire on the vehicle. On August 15, Israeli forces raided the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp and killed two Palestinians, one of them a 16 year old. A number of other shootings have been carried out this month, one of which was caught on camera and showed an Israeli soldier shooting an unarmed Palestinian man with special needs, who posed no threat. Since the beginning of 2022, over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, the majority of which have been murdered in the occupied West Bank. Israeli illegal settler attacks on Palestinians have also tripled this year, when compared to 2021, according to the United Nations.
This Sunday, an unidentified Palestinian man planned and successfully carried out a shooting attack, which resulted in the killing of two Israeli settlers in a car wash that was located in the Palestinian town of Huwara. Despite a heavy military presence in the area, the soldiers stationed nearby did not hear the sounds of the gunshots, nor did they catch the shooter, apparently due to the car wash having masked the sounds. No Palestinian armed group claimed responsibility for the attack on the illegal settlers (who will often use cheap Palestinian businesses in the area) while the identity of the attacker has still not been released. On Monday morning, another shooting against Israeli settlers traveling in a car was carried out by an unknown group of Palestinian gunmen, who managed to kill one settler and seriously wound another in the occupied city of al-Khalil.
This year has been the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005 — during the Second Intifada — while it has also been the deadliest year for Israelis. According to the official statistics released by Israel, some 34 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians this year so far, the majority of which have been illegal Israeli settlers and soldiers. The true number of soldiers killed is often hidden by the Israeli army, and so the death toll may well be somewhat higher. While Tel Aviv mourns the deaths of its settlers, to put things into perspective, the Palestinian child death toll is higher than the total number of Israelis killed this year.
The reaction from the Israeli settlers and the occupying military in the West Bank to the recent string of shooting attacks against settlers has been unsurprisingly brutal. After Palestinians came out to protest and throw stones at a raiding Israeli military force that entered Beita village, on Monday morning, soldiers opened fire and targeted unarmed civilians. One video captured the moment an unarmed Palestinian man was shot in the back of the head while running away from Israeli forces, the execution sent shockwaves throughout the West Bank as local villagers vowed revenge.
Beita | O’ Lord,They murdered him!!!
Moments Israeli occupation forces murdered the innocent Palestinian! https://t.co/rf0oD9MVw2 pic.twitter.com/njXBSr5661
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) August 21, 2023
A total of 12 Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces, none of which were carrying weapons. Last week, Israeli occupation police forces were accused of branding an arrested Palestinian, from the Shuafat refugee camp, with a Star of David on his cheek. The Jerusalem occupation police later denied that the man had been tortured and branded with the Star of David, claiming that the markings were caused by an officers shoe; an excuse that anyone who views the photos of the Palestinian man will find hard to believe.
This is a photo of the Palestinian guy that was branded on his face with Star of David by Israeli police.
There were 16 cops there and they all coincidentally had their body-cams turned off.
It’s apartheid.https://t.co/1fEup8mLwC pic.twitter.com/1cSWzxNeIh
— Saqib Ali (@s_saqib_ali) August 21, 2023
The Israeli public began to criticize the military for its failure to prevent attacks on settlers, to which the occupation army General Yehuda Fox pushed back by announcing that the Zionist forces would learn from their mistakes and that an escalation is in process, labelling it a “terror wave”. When Israeli settlers and soldiers are killed, it often sparks outrage from the Israeli public, who call for revenge and criticize the occupation army for allowing their rank and file to be killed. This could have also factored into why the Israeli airforce decided to launch a series of airstrikes against Damascus, Syria, on Monday night. It seems as if there is a general mood of frustration from the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu, over the government’s inability to confront the growing challenges posed by Palestinian armed groups inside the West Bank. This will likely lead to another bloody massacre against West Bank civilians, as we have seen repeatedly this year.
