The West Bank Is On The Verge Of All Out War

Despite the attempts of the Israeli military to put down Palestinian armed resistance by force, armed attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers are rapidly increasing. A trend of new armed groups announcing themselves throughout the West Bank has led to policies of collective punishment (a flagrant war crime) against entire Palestinian populations inside cities and refugee camps, but how did this all begin?

One of the latest high profile attacks against illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, occurred in an illegal settlement area called Kiryat Arba, located in the city of Al-Khalil. The attack was carried out by a 35-year-old named Mohammed Jabaari, during which he managed to kill one and injure four other settlers, using a M16 rifle, before being rammed by an Israeli vehicle and shot dead whilst laying injured. The attack is significant for three reasons; Al-Khalil is one of the most heavily patrolled areas in the occupied West Bank; Kiryat Arba is home to some of the most extreme fascist settlers; and so far armed attacks of this nature have not taken place in Al-Khalil this year.

Injured in the attack against the illegal settlement was Ofer Ohana, known for his harassment and assaults on Palestinians. Ohana is a settler activist and follower of extremist Zionist ideologue Meir Kahane, as is the prominent Israeli Member of the Knesset, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who owns a property in the Israeli settlement in al-Khalil. Followers of Meir Kahane, or Kahanists as they are called, were previously banned from running in the Israeli Knesset, but have made a comeback in recent years, most prominently with the ultranationalist Jewish Power Party of Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Party so extreme that AIPAC has even condemned it as “racist and reprehensible“. Following the attack in Kiryat Arba, racist settlers marched through the streets in several areas of the West Bank, chanting “revenge” and “death to Arabs”, attacking Palestinian vehicles and properties.

Anecdotally, having lived in the West Bank and visited the city of Al-Khalil countless times, I can firmly say that the Old City and surrounding areas are home to some of the worst oppression I have ever seen. Upon my first visit there, it severely impacted me personally. Seeing the homes stolen from Palestinians by settlers, streets where Palestinians are prohibited from walking, being violently confronted myself by armed settlers for wearing a Kuffiyeh (Palestinian scarf), watching children routinely arrested and placed in cages, all in one day, gave me a sense of what life is like for Palestinians living there. The more time I spent there, the more sadness and rage I felt. There are truly no words or descriptions, nor videos that can be shown which truly capture just how horrific life is for Palestinians living in the settlement zone, and my words here do not cover the half of it.

According to data released by the Israeli military, on October 31, 2,204 Palestinian attacks of varying kinds, against Israeli soldiers, military checkpoints, and settlements in the West Bank, had occurred since the beginning of 2022, killing 24 Israeli soldiers and settlers. By contrast, over 170 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank so far this year, with thousands of attacks by soldiers and settlers occurring every month against Palestinians under occupation. Although the scale of Israeli violence towards Palestinians is much greater, it is evident that there has been a major shift in the past year towards the option of armed struggle from West Bank Palestinians.

Last December, the Israeli military amended its ‘Open-fire’ policy, allowing for Israeli occupation forces to shoot-to-kill Palestinians at times when they pose no active threat to any Israeli soldier or settler. This meant that as long as a Palestinian could be framed by the Israeli soldiers responsible for the use of lethal force, to have committed an act of aggression in the past, they would be justified — under the Israeli military’s standards — in shooting a Palestinian in the back whilst running away. The relaxation of standards under which lethal force can be used was even criticized by the US Government, in that they had requested that Israel revisit their Open-fire policy amendments, in the wake of the killing of veteran al-Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh. The US plea was rejected by Tel Aviv.

In February of this year, the Israeli military transformed the conflict’s landscape inside the West Bank, assassinating three Palestinians traveling inside a car in the city of Nablus. The attack was carried out by an undercover Israeli special forces unit, which surrounded a civilian car and opened fire with as many as over a hundred bullets, an operation that was conducted in broad daylight. Later it was confirmed that the three killed were said to have identified themselves with the unofficial Fatah Party armed movement, the al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades, but were traveling in a civilian capacity at the time of the ambush. For Palestinians living in the West Bank, this Israeli operation came as a shock and worked only to encourage the younger generation to take up arms, due to the sheer scale of brutality demonstrated by the assassination attack.

Since September of last year, a group calling itself the Jenin Brigades, has existed in the north of the West Bank, belonging to the Jenin refugee camp. This September, the Lion’s Den group was announced out of the Old City of Nablus. A variety of groups calling themselves the Tulkarem Brigades, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Nablus division, Jenin al-Qassam and various others have also emerged. Perhaps the most popular group at this time is the Lion’s Den, which does not affiliate itself with any Palestinian political Party or armed movement and has demonstrated the ability to call upon thousands throughout the West Bank to demonstrate in its favor.

On March 31, Israel launched its ongoing military operation ‘Break the Wave”, which has included a number of measures used to punish Palestinians for the armed resistance of some, including a dramatic increase in home raids. Since then, invasions of both Jenin and Nablus have occurred a number of times, during which the Israeli military have utilized anti-tank missile systems, attack drones, attack helicopters, electronic warfare, and special forces units, so far failing to crush any of the armed groups. Due to such violence by Israeli forces, often coupled with the besiegement of an entire city or refugee camp, the numbers of dead and images that have emerged of the victims of drone strikes, shooting assassinations, anti-tank missile fire and more, have impacted West Bank Palestinians greatly. For the first time since the early 2000’s, the West Bank has become the top threat to the Israeli military, as all the attention had long been placed upon the armed groups in Gaza.

With the rise of ultranationalist-extremist political alliances, such as Religious Zionism, in the Israeli political mainstream, coupled with the lack of any desire to even talk to the Palestinians about a so-called two-state solution, it is evident why we see such desperation from Palestinians in the West Bank. If we add in that Israel’s repressive violence has greatly intensified and that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is essentially only there to aid Israeli security, the Palestinians of the West Bank really have no other options but to take up arms and escalate popular forms of civil disobedience. It is also certain that more Israeli violence will only add fuel to the fire.