Israel’s West Bank Attacks Fuel Its Annexation Plans
During a trip to the West Bank to conduct research and visit her family in Nablus in 2022, Yara Asi remembered the moments when Israel’s military besieged the city, a major economic hub for the region, in an effort to weed out militants living there.
The military siege lasted more than three weeks, killing more than 23 Palestinians across the territory. That year, Israeli raids and airstrikes killed more than 150 Palestinians, marking the deadliest year for the West Bank since 2006. The attacks — and the loss of life — continued into 2023 and have only accelerated since then.
While most eyes remain on Gaza, Israeli military attacks on the West Bank killed more than 594 since October 7, including 115 children who were killed by live ammunition, and 1,411 children injured, according to the United Nations. Around a dozen of those deaths can be attributed to violence by extremist Israeli settlers.
“This week, Israel expanded its military campaign in the West Bank with raids and airstrikes on the cities of Tulkarem, Jenin, and Tubas, marking its largest attack in the occupied territory since 2002 during the Second Intifada. In the span of three days, the Israeli military has killed at least 20 Palestinians in preemptive strikes. Footage has shown bulldozers destroying roads and other civilian infrastructure in the area. One strike at the Nur Shams refugee camp left five dead, including two boys, 13 and 15.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on the military to “take care of the threat in the exact way terror infrastructure in Gaza is taken care of, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian civilians and every other necessary step.”
While the United Nations human rights office said the strikes are in violation of international law, the U.S. reiterated Israel’s right to carry out “very real security needs, which includes countering terrorist activity in the West Bank,” according to a State Department statement to Middle East Eye.
The fear amid this climate, Asi said, is that such strikes could permanently push Palestinians out of the territory.
“For the first time, I’m really wondering: Will there be a place called Palestine for my kids and grandkids to go to?” said Asi, who was born in Nablus and immigrated to the U.S. in 1989 with her father when she was 4. While growing up, she continued to visit family each summer.
“This should be seen in the context of an ongoing and decadeslong effort to slowly but surely annex as much Palestinian territory as possible,” Parsi said. “There was never an attack from the West Bank, and Hamas is not the dominant force in the West Bank, and it goes to show that this is not as much about Hamas as it is about the Israeli state’s long-term plan to eliminate, wipe Palestine off the map.”
Evidence of human rights violations continues to mount in Israel’s operations in Gaza, including bombing civilians and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals; blocking aid; and torturing and abusing Palestinian detainees from both Gaza and the West Bank in its prisons. Israel’s leaders face potential war crime charges from the International Criminal Court, along with an ongoing genocide case within the U.N. International Court of Justice. A growing number of Democrats have pushed President Joe Biden to follow U.S. law, which bars the transfer of military aid if there is any evidence of human rights violations.
Even so, Israel has enjoyed the continued support from the U.S., with Biden’s administration continuing to send weapons.
According to Muhannad Ayyash, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University and policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, Israel’s logic is simple: “If we can get away with what we’re doing in Gaza, we can get away with it in the West Bank.”
Khaled Elgindy, who has served as an adviser to Palestinian leadership in several joint efforts with Israel and the U.S. to create a plan toward Palestinian statehood throughout the 2000s, said he has never felt further from a two-state solution.
He sees the recent strikes in the West Bank, as well as the exchange of strikes with Hezbollah in Lebanon, as part of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to prompt a regional war to further appease his far-right coalition and to maintain power.
“Is the endgame for Netanyahu ‘I’m just continuing to fight on as many fronts as we can create to keep everyone off-balance and prolong my stay in power’?” Elgindy said, “while satisfying his extremist flank who would love nothing more than to see evacuations in the West Bank.”
Each year when Asi would return to Nablus, she would observe living conditions worsening amid the tightening grip of Israeli forces. Although her relatives are carrying on with their lives in the West Bank, she has heard of more young people expressing interest in immigrating to Europe or Kuwait. Military raids, which in the past were usually carried out by night, have been increasing in frequency at all hours, limiting the freedom of movement. Settler violence, often facilitated by Israeli forces, is also worsening.
“Even the elders of the family who have seen it all — lived through ’67, lived through the intifadas, Oslo — they’re like, ‘This is the worst it’s ever been,’” Asi said.
“People who pride themselves on being resilient and not being afraid as part of their Palestinian identity, they are genuinely afraid,” she continued. “To leave one’s house, especially if you have a son, is to have a real material fear of death. … If something happens, there’s not going to be an investigation, there’s not going to be a tribunal: It’s going to just be another statistic.”