What is Israel’s deadly “Iron Wall” military incursion into Jenin in the West Bank? | Israel-Palestine conflict news

Israeli security forces and settler groups have engaged in attacks against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire went into effect on Sunday.

Settler attacks broke out almost immediately after the ceasefire, with members of Israel’s far right targeting some of the villages where freed Palestinian women and captive children had homes. Other Palestinian homes appear to have been targeted randomly.

Separately, the Israeli army began an operation, called “Iron Wall”, in the city of Jenin and in the refugee camp adjacent to Jenin.

The military assault comes after a raid of weeks by Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces on the Jenin refugee camp, where he targeted local Palestinian fighters in what he described as an attempt to restore law and order, but which many Palestinians see as a crackdown on independent Palestinian armed groups resisting the Israeli occupation. .

How many people were killed?

Israeli army attacks in Jenin killed 12 people – 10 during raids in Jenin governorate on Tuesday and two on Wednesday night.

It was not clear how many of those killed on Tuesday were civilians, but a statement from the AP said that Israeli forces had “opened fire on civilians and security forces, resulting in injuries to several civilians and a number of security personnel.” The AP added that at least 35 people were injured.

Wednesday’s deaths occurred in Burqin, a town just west of the city of Jenin. Palestinian news network Al Quds Today said Muhammad Abu al-Asaad and Qutaiba al-Shalabi were killed in “an armed clash with (Israeli) occupation forces.” Hamas’s armed wing said the two men were members of Hamas, although the Israeli military said they were affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Meanwhile, at least 21 Palestinians have been injured in attacks by Israeli settlers across the West Bank since the ceasefire began on Sunday.

Where is the violence?

Settler violence appears to be focused on at least six villages: Sinjil, Turmus Aya, Ein Siniya and al-Lubban Ashaqiya (near Ramallah) and Funduq and Jinsafut, (both near Nablus). According to the Guardian, the six villages were identified as the homes of women and children released by the Israeli government as part of the ceasefire.

In the city of Jenin, the army surrounded the government-run hospital and the nearby refugee camp, ordering the evacuation of hundreds. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the operation in Jenin as a “change to … security strategy”. He said the effort was part of Israel’s military plan for the occupied West Bank and was “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that the Israeli army is preventing it from reaching the wounded and the bodies of the dead.

Dozens of military checkpoints and barriers were erected throughout the West Bank, leading to tailbacks for civilians lasting between six and eight hours.

Has Jenin been targeted before?

He has

Israel has long accused Iran of funneling weapons to armed groups in Jenin and, in particular, its refugee camp. Jenin has long been a hotbed of Palestinian resistance, and the rise of an independent armed group, the Jenin Brigades, has particularly worried Israel.

In December, the Palestinian Authority launched what was said to be the largest and most violent confrontation with armed groups in the West Bank since its expulsion from Gaza by Hamas in 2007.

Thought by many analysts to be they set themselves up as the natural administrator of post-war GazaThe PA has been accused of replicating tactics deployed by Israeli forces in past attacks in Jenin and elsewhere: surrounding the camp with armored personnel carriers, shooting indiscriminately at civilians, summarily arresting and abusing youths, and cutting off supplies of water and electricity to civilians. civilians inside.

Before the attack by the PA, there were numerous assaults on Jenin by the Israeli army. Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh he was killed by Israel in one such raidin May 2022.

Israel targeted Jenin in July 2023, before the outbreak of the war in Gaza. During this attack, the army of Israel killed 12 people and injured around 100, one of the most significant losses of life from an infamous military operation in 2002, during the second Intifada. Fifty-two Palestinianshalf of them civilians, and 23 of the attacking Israeli soldiers were killed during that assault.

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of war crimes during the 2002 attack.

Is this the latest violence on the Gaza ceasefire?

Yes and no.

While most of the Israeli army was busy in Gaza and Lebanon, Israeli settlers launched the most violent year of attacks on record in the West Bank.

“The ceasefire was not enough for the Israelis,” Murad Jadallah of the rights group Al-Haq said from Ramallah in the West Bank. “The hostage deal did not feel like the victory that had been promised,” he added, suggesting that the consequences of the apparent disappointment after the deaths of more than 47,000 people were now playing out in the West Bank and in Jenin.

In general, second statistics from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)Israeli settlers carried out at least 1,860 attacks between October 7, 2023 – the day of the Hamas-led attack on Israel – and December 31, 2024.

“This is not what a ceasefire looks like,” Shai Parness of the Israeli rights group B’Tselem told Al Jazeera. “Since Israel and Hamas announced a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an agreement to release hostages and prisoners, Israel has intensified its violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Parness added: “Far from keeping fire against the Palestinians, Israel’s actions show that it has no intention of doing so. Instead, it is only shifting its focus from Gaza to other areas it controls in the West Bank.”

What are Israel’s plans for the West Bank?

Factors including the extreme right of Israel’s government and the coming to power of the pro-Israeli administration of US President Donald Trump predict hard times for the West Bank.

While Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, offered unequivocal support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which so far it has killed 47,283 peoplesome concern has been expressed by his administration about unrestrained violence by settlers in the West Bank, which the Biden administration has seen as potentially destabilizing the region.

But Trump’s lifting of sanctions imposed on settlers by the Biden administration offered a possible early glimpse of what many on Israel’s far right had hoped for — a more lenient U.S. policy toward Israel’s ambitions. of settlers for the West Bank.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself facing a rebellion from the right, with ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir resigning from Netanyahu’s coalition cabinet over the ceasefire agreement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has made no secret of his ambition for the annexation of the West Bank, has remained in the government, but has promised to resign if the Gaza ceasefire leads to the end of the war

“Smotrich has more power and influence than ever before,” Jadallah said of the negotiations to keep Smotrich on board.

“Ultimately, he wants to abandon the Israeli civil administration and have the West Bank administered exclusively by settlers,” Jadallah added, detailing his vision of the first steps toward Israel’s complete annexation of the West Bank.

Evidence of that new approach to the West Bank and its settlers had already become evident before the ceasefire and Trump’s presidency.

On Friday, Katz announced that all remaining settlers held in administrative detention, a process for individuals to be held indefinitely without charge, would be released. Administrative detention was widely used for Palestinian detainees, although it had previously been applied to some Israelis.

On the release of the settlers, Katz wrote in a statement that it was “better for the families of the Jewish settlers to be happy than the families of the freed terrorists,” referring to the Palestinian women and children freed by Israel on Sunday as and part of the ceasefire agreement. .