Tulkarm

Efforts to displace Palestinians are in action in the West Bank, Israel media reports

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Israeli army enters the city with tanks for the first time since 2002 following after the ceasefire and prisoner and hostages swap agreement in Gaza entered into force in Jenin, West Bank on February 23, 2025 [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]

Calls to displace Palestinians from Gaza are already being translated into action in the occupied West Bank, where the occupation army has forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes, Haaretz reported today.

The Hebrew edition of the newspaper referred to the statements of the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who proudly announced yesterday the goal of the operation that the army is waging in the occupied West Bank: the expulsion of the residents of the refugee camps.

The newspaper added that in the context of the Gaza Strip, they dream of transfer, but in the West Bank they are actually implementing it.

The minister added that “it is assumed that the 40,000 Palestinians who have already been expelled from the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams will not be allowed to return there for at least a year.”

The newspaper said: “Katz’s statements completely contradict the official claim of the Israeli army since the beginning of the operation in the West Bank, which is that it is not evacuating the residents of the West Bank.”

According to the newspaper, “the residents of the refugee camps who were evacuated from their homes are taking refuge in the villages and towns in the area.”

Dozens of them sleep on the floors of temporary shelters run by local volunteers, while tens of thousands of them were forced to evacuate their homes quickly, without enough clothes, medicine or money. Children have not been to school for weeks.

It added that “the army is demolishing homes in refugee camps to widen roads, and has decided to tighten the atmosphere even more, as the army has brought its tanks into the Jenin refugee camp – for the first time in 20 years.”

The newspaper considered that “the army’s practices in the West Bank are the fruits of a campaign led by the settler leadership that has been pushing in these directions for more than a year, as the settlers have succeeded in turning the West Bank into a war zone in every sense of the word.”

Palestinians have reported being forced out of their homes by Israeli occupation forces, while others were used as human shields, then ordered to leave the refugee camp. One elderly blind man recounted how the army took over a building, brought him inside and locked him in a room with another family for two days without being able to communicate with anyone.

The newspaper stressed that

the rapid escalation in recent weeks –  is compensation for the Israeli far-right for the disappointment and grief caused by the prisoner exchange deal.

The newspaper said that “Israel, as usual, instead of solving the root problems of the conflict, is proving that it only understands force, and that it is only capable of short-term thinking.”

READ: White House backs Israel’s decision to delay release of Palestinian prisoners

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UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Continue ReadingEfforts to displace Palestinians are in action in the West Bank, Israel media reports

Israel invades the West Bank in largest operation since 2002

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Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

IOF attacks in Al-Fara’a Camp in Tubas. Photo: Wafa News Agency

Israel continues to close all possible doors to a ceasefire in Gaza and de-escalation in the West Asia region, intensifying military operations and provocations in the West Bank and Gaza

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched the largest military operation across the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, August 27, aiming at crushing the Palestinian armed resistance groups. According to Israeli media outlets, the operation is the largest assault carried out by the Israeli military since 2002 at the peak of the Second Intifada. The operation involves hundreds of Israeli ground soldiers, warplanes, drones, and bulldozers.

On Tuesday night, the IOF ordered the residents of Nour Shams refugee camp, in the city of Tulkarm north of the West Bank to evacuate the camp. Israeli forces also established a military checkpoint to search the residents before leaving. The IOF has resorted to similar evacuation orders in the Gaza strip during the 11-month Israeli genocidal aggression on the Palestinian people there.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday, August 28, “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required. This is a war for everything and we must win it.”

Katz added regarding the expanded operation, which the IOF carried out in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm overnight, that the Israeli military has been working “to thwart Islamic-Iranian terror infrastructure that was set up there.”

The large-scale Israeli military operation that started on Tuesday night is intended to continue for several days, according to media reports. The operation also included the West Bank cities of Nablus, Tubas and Ramallah. At least 10 people have been killed in the last 24 hours. The death toll in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, has surpassed 660 people since October 7 attacks.

While storming different parts of the West Bank, the IOF has been committing flagrant violations of human rights against civilians and medical staff. According to the Palestinian News and Information Agency Wafa, the Israeli military seized the house of Palestinian resident Hamada Odeh Al-Barghouthi in the town of Beit Rima, northwest of Ramallah since Tuesday night. They turned the house into a field investigation center and a military barracks, where a number of Palestinian young men from the town, neighboring towns and villages have been detained.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also reported that the IOF stormed a medical facility in the Al-Far’a refugee camp south of the city of Tubas, and detained and assaulted its staff, while shooting live ammunition inside the facility.

As Israeli incursions have been taking place in the West Bank, the massacres in Gaza and elsewhere in the region have not stopped. On Wednesday, August 28, IOF struck the Al-Manfalouti school, where displaced people were sheltering in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza strip, killing at least 8 Palestinians and injuring several others. At least 4 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a car in Syria near the border with Lebanon. The Israeli Army claimed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement’s top commander Faris Qasim was killed in the attack, without any confirmation by Islamic Jihad that Faris could have been assassinated.

Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael invades the West Bank in largest operation since 2002

2023 was deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005

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Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Israeli occupation forces obstructing the work of ambulances in Jenin. (Photo: Mohammad Mansour/WAFA)

Over 500 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in 2023. Under its undeclared policy of collective punishment, Israel also destroyed a significant amount of civilian infrastructure such as roads, residential buildings, and hospitals in West Bank since October 7

Israel’s war on Gaza has entered its fourth month. It has killed over 23,000 Palestinians in the besieged enclave and injured around 60,000. Nearly 80% of all Gazans have been displaced due to the constant bombings. The amount of destruction and killing in Gaza is horrendous. The offensive has also extended to the West Bank where Palestinians have been facing a form of undeclared collective punishment both before and since the war in Gaza.  

Though the West Bank has always faced violent attacks from Israeli occupation, those attacks have increased manifold since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Despite the fact that Hamas does not rule the territory, Israel used the excuse of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to justify its unprecedented attacks on civilians and their infrastructure there. 

Between October 7 and December 31, last year more than 340 Palestinians, including a large number of children, were killed in attacks carried out by both the Israeli forces and illegal settlers. 

The Israeli attacks targeted Palestinian civilians, including artists from the famous Freedom Theater, while homes were demolished, hospitals and medical facilities targeted, and roads and other civilian infrastructure uprooted.  

At least three Palestinian men were shot and killed by the occupying Israeli forces during the intervening period of Monday evening and Tuesday night in Tulkarm. Video footage of these attacks showed Israeli forces first shooting and killing the men and then running over the bodies of one of them with their military vehicle.

Israeli forces reportedly conducted similar night raids in Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, among several other places on Tuesday night, arresting scores of people and destroying civic infrastructure.

Israeli occupation is targeting the Palestinians in the West Bank economically as well by refusing to transfer millions of dollars in tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority, leaving it with no money to pay the salaries to its over 140,000 employees. It has also refused to allow around 150,000 workers from the territory to return to their jobs in Israel since October 7.  

Deadliest Year since 2005

Israeli forces similarly attacked the Jenin refugee camp a couple of days ago and killed at least 7 Palestinians. They have targeted the camp repeatedly since October 7, killing over 60 Palestinians there and deliberately destroying most of the roads and other civil infrastructure. According to Al-Jazeera, Tulkarm too has been a center of Israeli attacks with at least 60 Palestinians killed since October 7.

In August, the UN had already declared 2023 to be the deadliest year for the West Bank as the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks had crossed 200, more than the previous high of 167 in 2022.

According to the latest data, the total number of Palestinians killed in 2023 has crossed 500 with over 13,000 more injured in the attacks carried out by both illegal settlers as well as Israeli soldiers.

More than 70 of the Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks were children. This is the highest number of the Palestinian children ever killed in the occupied West Bank in a year. Some sources say the death toll among children is even higher.

Settler Violence

According to Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, 2023 was also the most violent year for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in terms of the number of attacks carried out by the illegal settlers. According to it, at least 10 Palestinians were killed in 2023 just in those attacks.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 1,225 cases of settler violence were recorded in 2023.

The figure presented by the Palestinian officials for the same is almost double at 2,410. It also claims that the number of Palestinians killed in settler violence in 2023 was 22.

There are around 500,000 Israeli settlers living illegally inside the occupied West Bank. Most of these illegal settlers participate in attacks on nearby Palestinian villages under security cover provided by the Israeli occupation forces.

The settlers attack the villages, burn Palestinian houses, their farms and other properties, and attack people trying to prevent those attacks with the objective of terrorizing people to leave their villages and farms.

Record number of Palestinians detained

More than 11,000 Palestinians were also arrested or detained by Israel in the last year in the occupied West Bank alone, which is almost three times higher than the total number of Palestinians inside Israeli prisons before the beginning of the year.

Some of them were later released after a brief period of detention. Some others were released as part of the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. Still the number of Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails has jumped from around 4,500 before the beginning of the year to over 7,000 at the end of it.

A joint statement issued by Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Addameer, and others stated that 1,085 of those detained by the Israeli occupation forces from the West Bank in 2023 were children.

As per reports, scores of Palestinian prisoners have been killed inside Israeli jails with large number of them reporting torture and abuse by the prisoner authorities.

Original article by Abdul Rahman republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue Reading2023 was deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005