Relatives of Rawhe Sawafta, a 70-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli forces during clashes with Hamas fighters mourn in Tubas, West Bank, October 31. (Credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP)
With Israel’s response in Gaza monopolizing media attention, in the West Bank, the Israeli cabinet, army and settlers are no longer hiding. Attacks over the past three weeks have threatened to set the West Bank ablaze.
“They [the people of the West Bank] are watching the atrocities committed in Gaza, the dehumanization of the Palestinian people and the merciless massacres,” said Omar Rahman, a researcher at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in Doha. “They fear that they will be the next victims.”
As of Oct. 7, 121 Palestinians, including 33 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Monday. Another 2,156 people, including over 200 children, have been injured.
In addition, more than 1,590 West Bank Palestinians have been arrested, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Oct. 29. This is in addition to the over 181 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Israel throughout 2023, the highest number of deaths since the end of the second intifada in2005, according to the UN.
Eight settler attacks a day
In the West Bank, military control pervades the everyday lives of Palestinians. After Oct. 7, Israel has further tightened the noose by increasing restrictions of movement. They created military cordons around some localities, imposed curfews, and closed checkpoints and the crossing point between Jordan and the West Bank.
“The West Bank is sealed off, with constant incursions by the Israeli army into Palestinian areas,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Early Monday, four Palestinians were killed in a military operation by the Israeli army in Jenin (north). This offensive is part of a series of raids that have regularly taken place since 2005 on the Palestinian resistance’s stronghold in recent months. During one of the raids a brigade of at least 1,000 soldiers, bulldozers, reconnaissance drones and helicopter gunships were mobilized over two days (July 3-5), killing 12 Palestinians, including civilians.
“One needs to go back to the second intifada to find similar intensity of military action,” added Omari. “The settlers’ violence, on the other hand, is unprecedented.”
With the tacit consent of the Israeli army, settlers have significantly increased their attacks since Oct. 7. Their actions have largely been overshadowed in the media as they continue their strategy of annexing more land in the West Bank.
According to UNOCHA, settlers have more than doubled their attacks from three a day to an average of eight, since the start of the war.
“Their lives and livelihoods are being affected,” said Rahman. “Their [settlers] raids are taking place at the height of the harvest season, when Palestinian farmers have to gather their bread and butter from their fields. Settlers came down from the hills, stole their olive crops and then attacked and killed them,” he continued.
This is deliberate retaliation and for the Hamas attacks and a pretext for carrying out their full plan of annexing the West Bank without constraint. Estimated at nearly 480,000 in the West Bank, the number of settlers has quadrupled in 30 years, according to the UN.
‘Adding fuel to the fire’
Palestinians who survived settler attacks remain under threat and regularly receive death threats. Many have had no choice but to leave their homes and possessions behind. This is what happened on Oct. 12, five days after the start of the war.
In Wadi al-Siq, a small Palestinian village, almost 200 Palestinian Bedouins were driven out by Israeli soldiers and settlers. This is just one example of the orchestrated displacement.
Since Oct. 7, almost 1,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes in the West Bank, according to the OCHA. The attacks have reached such a level that they have been condemned by several world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, Israel’s main ally.
A week ago, Biden expressed concern over reports of “extremist settlers” attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. The US President added that these attacks were “adding fuel to the fire.”
Biden’s remarks came after he privately told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the growing tension in the West Bank could aggravate the already complicated war in Gaza, according to two US officials quoted by US news website Axios.
Since Netanyahu’s cabinet took power in December, its far-right and ultra-Orthodox ministers have increased their provocations and speeches of one-upmanship.
“Not only do members of the government and the judiciary fail to hold the settlers to account, they also encourage them to continue their attacks on Palestinians,” said Aseel al-Bajeh, legal researcher and advocacy officer at Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization.
Since the start of the war, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has distributed dozens of weapons to Israeli volunteers, as shown on social media. Upon Ben Gvir’s proposal, the Knesset’s National Security Committee approved to amend firearms license regulations a week later.
Since Oct. 7, tens of thousands of applications have been made by Israeli citizens wishing to possess firearms, which are now incredibly easy to access.
Security breakdown?
“So far, the main Israeli approach in the West Bank has focused on security measures,” said Omari. “However, with the world focused on Gaza, it is not unlikely that the far-right members of the Israeli cabinet, in particular Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, will take advantage of the situation to push forward their agenda, particularly the settlements’ expansion.”
Known for his Jewish supremacist rhetoric, Smotrich, a radical settler, also has authority over the civil administration in the West Bank. He has never hidden his intention to annex further territories.
Faced with Israeli military operations, the settlers’ unprecedented violence and Palestinian public’s ire at the intensity of the war in Gaza, some fear violence could explode in the occupied territories in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which has become largely discredited by its population — is incapable of exercising effective political and security control. In recent days, several demonstrations in support of Gaza and Hamas have broken out throughout the West Bank, provoking a heavy-handed response from the PA security forces.
“A security breakdown in the West Bank could have disastrous consequences,” said Omari. “Apart from human losses, it could lead to the PA collapse and spread to Jordan, given its proximity.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 25 that the weapons flow, which is pumped by Tehran and its allies through Jordan into the West Bank, has increased in recent years.
Today, the scenario of spring 2021 is on everyone’s mind. From Jerusalem to Gaza, Palestinians mobilized against the violence committed by the Israeli Army and settlers in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
“The difference with May 2021 civil unrest is that the extremist leaders who hold key positions in the Netanyahu cabinet have prepared themselves for this moment,” said Rahman.
“Their intention is to drive as many people as possible from their homes and take control of their land. This is the fear in which the Palestinians live. They have no one to protect them.”