by Farrukh Abadi
Israel launched a major military operation in the West Bank Wednesday night, involving ground forces of hundreds of soldiers, armored vehicles, and bulldozers, as well as aerial strikes with jets and drones. The attacks are concentrated on refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas in the northern West Bank, hotbeds of organized Palestinian armed resistance. At least 11 Palestinians have been killed so far. Israeli military sources have indicated that the army is expected to continue its attacks for several days. The Palestinian National Resistance organized in the West Bank has met the Israeli incursions with a series of counter-attacks and defensive actions.
The “counter-terrorism” operation is among the largest Israeli incursions in the West Bank in decades. Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz claims that “Iran is working to establish an eastern terrorist front against Israel in the West Bank” through weapons, finance, and infrastructure. Katz stated that the West Bank should be treated like Gaza, urging Israeli forces to “evacuate” the Palestinians from the West Bank. “This is a war for everything and we must win it,” he wrote in a post on X.
Israeli forces closed down roads leading to the refugee camps and surrounded hospitals and medical facilities across the camps, attacking medical personnel and preventing them from operating. Earlier this year, Israel raided a Jenin hospital with soldiers disguised as medical personnel in a violation of international law.
The Resistance in the West Bank faces its own difficulties—the collaborator Palestinian Authority works to arrest and kill resistance fighters, and the territory is split up by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints. Nevertheless, just one day before the Israeli operation, al-Qassam Brigades stated that “the resistance in the West Bank is moving towards achieving all its goals of expansion and sustainability in all the governorates of the West Bank”, a claim backed up by the fierce resistance currently under way across the northern refugee camps.
Palestinian resistance fighters have been carrying out counter-attacks against the invading forces, including Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades, and local resistance groups like the Tulkarm Brigade and the Jenin Brigade. At least one Israeli solider has been reportedly killed according to the Israeli military in the latest fighting. Resistance groups have also detonated explosives and destroyed a number of Israeli military vehicles.
According to Al Jazeera, nearly daily raids by Israeli forces have taken place in the West Bank since 2022, though the number has more than tripled since October 7. These raids typically include destroying Palestinian infrastructure, such as water and electricity structures, aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians and taking over their land. Israeli military forces work in tandem with settlers, who have used the opportunity to expand their attacks and land grabs with impunity.
Since October 7, Israel has arrested at least 10,200 Palestinians, killed more than 640, and injured more than 5,400 in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, at least 3,432 Palestinians are being held indefinitely without charge under administrative detention, where they are subjected to brutal conditions and torture.
Palestinians resistance groups in the West Bank have increasingly carried out counter-attacks with improvised explosives and arms against Israeli forces and settlers to defend themselves. Over the past few years, resistance forces have organized themselves into local militias comprised of members of various resistance factions across the West Bank as a development of military cooperation, forming organizations such as the Jenin Brigade, the Tulkarm Brigade, the Tubas Brigade, and the Nablus-based Lions’ Den.
Jenin in particular has a long history of resistance, dating back to the Arab Revolt against British colonialism and European settlers in the 1930s. In the Second Intifada, forces in Jenin liquidated 23 Israeli soldiers and wounded dozens more over the course of 10 days during the Battle of Jenin in 2002. Israeli forces again concentrated their attacks on Jenin in July 2023, where around 1,000 Israeli soldiers swarmed the city and murdered 12 Palestinians during a 48-hour attack. This year alone, there has been over 50 shooting operations carried out by Jenin-based resistance forces so far.
Photo: Israeli bulldozer being used in its ongoing genocidal military operation in the West Bank. Photo retrieved from Resistance News Network Telegram channel.
