Farrukh Abadi
Israel has initiated yet another siege on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Tuesday (01/21), which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said would be “extensive and significant.” Israeli forces have bulldozed all roads leading to the camp, blocking medical personnel from entering while carrying out a ground assault and aerial attacks.
Jenin is known for its heroic resistance to Zionist occupation throughout the last century, for which Abu Obeida in a recent speech commended as the “the sister city of Gaza in its heroism and steadfastness.”
The operation was launched amid days of pogroms waged by Israelis from illegal settlements in the West Bank following the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire on Sunday. It also comes after the Palestinian Authority, the governing body of the West Bank subservient to the US and Israel, carried out a weeks-long campaign against resistance forces and the people of Jenin last December, which ultimately failed to subdue the resistance.
According to Quds News Network, PA undercover forces are coordinating with Israel in the latest attacks, with PA forces having so far executed a young man in Jenin and carried out arrests during a hospital raid.
The latest siege is part of Israel’s shift in focus from Gaza to the West Bank in the aftermath of the Gaza ceasefire and Trump’s inauguration. Last year, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich laid out plans for the complete annexation of the West Bank, which he reiterated following Trump’s electoral victory in November. Earlier this month, Smotrich said that the West Bank villages and cities “Funduq, Nablus, and Jenin must look like Jabalia,” referring to the northern Gaza city reduced to rubble after facing the brunt of Israel’s attack during a weeks-long campaign. This notably still failed to curb resistance forces in the Gazan city, who used the rubble to their advantage in carrying out urban guerrilla warfare and successfully repelling Zionist troops.
Already, Israel has killed 10 Palestinians and injured at least 40 in addition to numerous detentions and damage to infrastructure as part of the latest siege. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed over 800 Palestinians and injured over 6,700 in the West Bank alone.
Palestinian resistance in the West Bank continues despite the difficulties of fighting under both Israeli and the US-trained PA forces’ repression. On Sunday night, an Israeli officer was killed and 3 others injured in an IED explosion near Tubas, while early Thursday morning local time, Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades successfully bombed an Israeli bulldozer in Jenin. This is in addition to two separate stabbing attacks carried out in Tel Aviv within the span of a week, which left one Israeli army officer injured among others. Israel itself reports that West Bank militants have attempted over 2,000 attacks against Israeli forces in the last 15 months, who have successfully withstood and repelled repeated Israeli and PA attacks and carried out their own counteroffensives.
Photo: Screenshot of bulldozed road outside a hospital in Jenin. Retrieved from swilkinsonbc on X.
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