Israeli occupation forces killed three more Palestinians on Wednesday, paving the way to further violence in the West Bank, followed by the killing of three more Palestinians in Jenin on Thursday. The violent policy now being practiced against Palestinians stems from a ruling late last year, that allows Israeli forces to kill those who pose no immediate threat and only further escalates the growing possibility of war.
On Wednesday morning, following previous warnings from the Hamas movement and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Joint Room of Palestinian resistance factions issued a threat that if Israel invades Jenin refugee camp or the al-Aqsa mosque compound, Gaza will respond. Israel, which threatened to invade the camp in the northern West Bank, have so far refrained from doing so, largely due to the threat to their forces from the ‘Jenin Brigades’ and other armed groups, as well as threats from PIJ in Gaza.
However, others throughout the West Bank have paid the ultimate price for daring to be walking around in the streets or protesting and throwing stones. Amongst the most recent victims being; 14 year old Qusai Hamamrah from Bethlehem, 20 year old Omar Alyan from Silwad and Mohammed Assaf, a 34 year old lawyer. Last Sunday, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian women in one day. One of them was 47 year old mother of 6, Ghada Sabateen, who was blind in one eye, was executed on camera by Israeli forces for no reason at all, she was simply trying to walk past a checkpoint. Ghada’s murder was so bad that the European Union even took their time to condemn it, she left her children behind as orphans due to them losing their day also at an earlier date.
To give an idea of how trigger happy Israeli forces are, on Sunday an Israeli who was suffering from mental issues ran into the streets of Ashkelon with a toy pistol. The man allegedly went to grab the weapon of a female Israeli police officer and the response was for Israeli forces to open fire on the man immediately after mistaking him for being a Palestinian. Some accounts alleged that up to 10 bullets were fired into the man. On Monday, three Palestinians were also gunned down in a single day in the West Bank, which seems to be a recurring theme.
Why is this violence so frequent? Some have argued that the reason so many Palestinians, including unarmed children and women, are now being executed by Israeli forces is down to fear. Israel witnessed four attacks against its cities in a two week period, resulting in the deaths of 13, amongst them both civilian settlers, police and soldiers. Two of these attacks were carried out by Palestinians from the West Bank. The argument now being made by Israeli occupation apologists is that the only reason for this violence is Israeli fear as a reaction to recent attacks.
The reality is that whilst the Israeli army is certainly displaying signs of great fear, it is also following rules of engagement which allow for them to shoot Palestinians dead in any circumstance they choose. According to the revised rules of engagement, as of December last year, the Israeli military is permitted to not only shoot to kill Palestinians when they pose a threat to Israelis, but also any Palestinian believed by the military to have committed an act which posed a threat in the past. The Israeli rules of engagement ordinarily stipulate that if you believe you see any threat to your life as a soldier, you can essentially shoot to kill a Palestinian. If that wasn’t bad enough, according to the updated “open-fire” policy, even a Palestinian who previously posed a threat is now fair game if they are running away with their back turned. Add these rules of engagement with the fact that Israeli forces are facing a growing uprising inside the West Bank, along with the fact that many Israeli soldiers harbor ultra-Nationalist and racist views against Palestinians, it is a recipe for disaster.
In addition to this, in the wake of the recent attack on Tel Aviv, which resulted in three Israeli deaths, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett granted “all security forces full freedom” to defeat Palestinian threats. Which translates to giving Israel’s military a carte blanche to murder at will when they see fit.
Israeli forces are at this point being given directives to pursue, that look very similar to the orders given during the first Intifada (1987-93), former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s ‘bone crushing’ orders. Except this time the violent means of quelling Palestinian revolts is not to break the bones of demonstrators, but to shoot to kill.
According to the armed groups in Gaza, they now possess enough weapons to sustain a six-month-long war against their Israeli occupier and are readying themselves to retaliate to Israeli aggression in both Jerusalem and Jenin. At some point it is easy to see this situation escalating into a fully blown war, similar to what we saw last May. So far since the beginning of Ramadan, at least 23 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces.
