The non-stop Israeli-Palestinian violence in West Bank
By Joan Mas Autonell
Jenin/Nablus (West Bank), Feb 8 (EFE).- Israeli forces have been ramping up overnight arrest raids in Palestinian cities and refugee camps, prompting near-daily deadly clashes with young people and armed groups.
Violence has gripped the occupied West Bank in one of the longest spates in years. So far this year, at least 42 Palestinians have died, the deadliest since 2015.
Tension began to escalate almost a year ago but it gained momentum over the months to reach what could be the worst security situation in years, Haaretz’s West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf told Efe.
SPIRALLING VIOLENCE
On Monday, Israeli forces said they had killed five members of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas during an overnight raid on the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp in the city of Jericho.
The aim of the raid was to arrest a number of militants suspected of carrying out an attempted attack on a restaurant last month, the Israeli military said.
A 17-year-old boy was shot dead Tuesday during an incursion in Nablus after a shootout broke out when troops tried to arrest people on suspicion of participating in terrorist activities.
Raids mostly took place in the northern part of the West Bank but they recently spread to Jericho and the Jordan Valley, “the quietest part of the West Bank,” according to Shezaf.
It is a “sign that things are not calming down,” she said.
The wheel of conflict is being driven by a lack of perspectives, precariousness, Israeli occupation, a never-ending colonization system and the failed project of a Palestinian state, Palestinian analysts told Efe.
GROWING MILITIA
Palestinian armed resistance, such as the Jenin Brigades and the Lions’ Den, has been growing among impoverished young people in several West Bank cities, Mustafa Sheta, head of the Freedom Theater cultural center in Jenin, said.
In Jenin and Nablus, posters of Palestinian fighters killed amid clashes with Israeli soldiers are hung on walls and referred to as “heroes.”
More and more young people join these groups despite Israeli operations that result in deaths almost every time.
“They have nothing to lose, even if they lose their lives,” said Tayseer Nasrallah, one of the ruling Fatah party’s leaders in Nablus.
“The lack of guarantees to improve their lives leads many to take up weapons rather than other forms of resistance,” Sheta added.
Other young people who are unaffiliated to any group end up attacking Israelis on their own, including the wave of attacks in Israel in 2022 that triggered military raids in the Palestinian territories.
TENSION IN THE AIR
The day after 10 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including nine during a raid by Israeli forces, a Palestinian shot dead seven Israelis outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem on January 27.
