While Gaza is on fire, the West Bank is boiling

While global attention has been on Israel’s war on Gaza, tensions in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are boiling.

Since October 7, at least 400 Palestinians have been killed, including 100 children, and 4,522 Palestinians, including 702 injured by occupation forces in the occupied West Bank, with more than eight killed in East Jerusalem, as per the latest statistics by the Palestinian Health Ministry. Moreover, Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians living in the Occupied West Bank, many in administrative detention, without charges. Moreover, 830 Palestinians, including 337 children, have been displaced, following the destruction of 131 homes during operations carried out by IOF across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. اضافة اعلان

Many communities have been essentially in lockdown, with roads and checkpoints closed and freedom of movement restricted. However, most vulnerable Palestinian communities have been left completely isolated, without access to the most essential goods and services, living in a constant cycle of fear and uncertainty.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned recently that the West Bank is grappling with escalating violence, arrests, and movement restrictions that impact hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their work permits inside Israel and are now unable to leave the West Bank, where commercial activity is limited. This puts the economy – and the humanitarian situation - at risk of further deterioration. The Israeli army continues its raids across the Occupied West Bank using live fire and tear gas, and many Palestinians get killed or injured nearly daily.

In its latest report, Amnesty International detailed “Emblematic cases where Israeli forces used unlawful lethal force.” It added that four incidents resulted in the unlawful killing of 20 Palestinians, including seven children.

Since October 7, at least 400 Palestinians have been killed, including 100 children, and 4,522 Palestinians, including 702 injured by occupation forces in the occupied West Bank, with more than eight killed in East Jerusalem, as per the latest statistics by the Palestinian Health Ministry. Moreover, Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank, many in administrative detention, without charges. Moreover, 830 Palestinians, including 337 children, have been displaced, following the destruction of 131 homes during operations carried out by IOF across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“Under the cover of the relentless bombardment and atrocity crimes in Gaza, Israeli forces have unleashed unlawful lethal force against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, carrying out unlawful killings and displaying a chilling disregard for Palestinian lives,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s director of global Research, advocacy, and policy said.

Adding that Israeli authorities, including the Israeli judicial system, have shown themselves to be “shamefully unwilling to ensure justice for Palestinian victims.”
“In this climate of near total impunity, an international justice system worth its salt must step in,” she said, calling on the Prosecutor of the ICC to investigate the killings and injuries as “possible war crimes.”

She added “The situation in Palestine and Israel is a litmus test for the legitimacy and reputation of the court. It cannot afford to fail it.” Moreover, settler violence, which was already at record levels in the occupied West Bank, has been surging strongly daily since October 7, where the methods employed in these attacks varied, from firing live ammunition to beatings, uprooting trees, stoning vehicles, blocking roads, and attacking homes, families, and farmers.

Entire Palestinian communities have been forced from their lands by this violence and more than 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been compelled from their homes. Israel has pushed forward with a plan for the large–scale arming of Israeli–Jewish settlers and civilian militias inside Israel, inciting settlers to carry out land grabs with the backing of the Israeli forces. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right settler with a long history of anti-Arab incitement, responded to the October 7 attack by distributing more weapons to the settler population and tasking settlers with security.

Besides, a “shoot to kill’’ policy of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank was recently carried out mostly by Israeli extremist armed settlers who reside illegally in the occupied West Bank and act with immunity and mostly under the protection of the Israeli forces. On the other hand, although consecutive Israeli governments have expanded settlements in the occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank territories in the past years, construction has accelerated rapidly under Netanyahu’s current right-wing government. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been pushing the planning authorities to approve the construction of 7,000 housing units in West Bank settlements and in response to the Palestinian shooting attack that killed one Israeli and wounded five recently, Smotrich announced a new plan to build more than 3,300 new homes in settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Instead of acting to prevent future horrible attacks such as of ‘yesterday,”’ the government of Israel is acting to deepen the conflict and the tensions,” said Hagit Ofran, from the Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now.

 “The construction in settlements is bad for Israel, distancing us from peace and security,” she added. The efforts of the right-wing finance minister who was also given authority over civilian matters in the occupied West Bank, come amid geopolitical turbulence and as the Biden administration and other Palestinian and Israeli allies have called for a future Palestinian State to end the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, wrote in the Israeli daily, Haaretz, that “the supreme aim of the duo National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is not the Occupation of the Gaza Strip.”

Entire Palestinian communities have been forced from their lands by this violence and more than 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been compelled from their homes. Israel has pushed forward with a plan for the large–scale arming of Israeli–Jewish settlers and civilian militias inside Israel, inciting settlers to carry out land grabs with the backing of the Israeli forces.

“Gaza is just the introductory chapter; the platform this gang wants to build as the foundation upon which the real fight they are eyeing will be conducted: the battle for the West Bank and the Temple Mount,” he said, referring to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, using its name in Judaism. Olmert argued that “the ultimate aim of this gang is ‘purging’ the West Bank of its Palestinian inhabitants, cleansing the Temple Mount of its Muslim worshippers.” He warned that “the way to achieve this goal is blood-soaked. Israeli blood, in the state and the Territories, it has been controlling for 57 years now, as well as Jewish blood in places elsewhere in the world.”

“As well as a lot of Palestinian blood, of course, in the Territories, in Jerusalem, and if there is no alternative – also among Arab citizens of Israel,” he added. Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal and the United Nations have been calling for years in vain for its cessation, warning that it undermines the chances of addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by the principle of a two-state solution.

On its part and over the past decades, Israel has been persistently pursuing annexation in most parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, confiscating or endorsing confiscation of Palestinian lands and resources, resulting in over 300 settlements housing more than 750,000 Israeli settlers.

Today, the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, is a clear challenge and violation of all resolutions of international legitimacy and international law. Israel’s genocide and fast rate of civilian killing are leading the entire region to a dangerous situation with unpredictable consequences and the tragedy continues to unfold for the Palestinians who are trapped in a maze of unlawfulness and injustice.

The international community’s failure till date to pressure Israel to implement and comply with international law and the relevant international legitimacy resolutions encouraged it to deepen settlement activity and sabotage international efforts to end the occupation and achieve peace and security. The spiral of violence will continue unless the importance of international law as a foundation of peace and security is restored. Justice must be served, and international law must be upheld without double standards to end this cycle of violence and secure a just and lasting peace.


Najla M. Shahwan is a Palestinian author, researcher, and freelance journalist who has published 13 books and a series of children’s stories. She is the recipient of two prizes from the Palestinian Union of Writers.

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