SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
jenin
With All Eyes on Gaza, Israel Bulldozed 'Mile After Mile' of West Bank
"We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools," said one local leader. "They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road."
Sep 25, 2024
As the world watched Israel's assaults on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, The New York Times on Wednesday also directed attention to the West Bank, detailing how "Israeli military bulldozers tore up mile after mile" of Jenin and Tulkarm in recent weeks.
While "nearly nightly raids" by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "have become the norm" in the West Bank since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the military last month "launched one of its most extensive and deadliest raids" in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory in years, the newspaper reported, citing videos and interviews with residents.
"We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road," said Kamal Abu al-Rub, governor of Jenin. "What was the point of all of this?"
In addition to ground operations in the West Bank, the IDF has increased airstrikes that critics say run afoul of international law. The military defended the strikes and told the Times that in recent raids, troops found weapon stockpiles and killed or arrested dozens of militants—but also caused some "unavoidable harm to certain civilian structures."
In response to videos included in the reporting, freelance journalist Pete Tucker accused Israeli soldiers of "methodically laying waste to" the West Bank.
Malini Ranganathan, an associate professor at American University's School of International Service, said on social media that "Israel's criminality knows no limits. IDF bulldozers have been obliterating the West Bank, even tearing up roundabouts."
Israeli forces have damaged homes, shops, and roads along with internet, electricity, phone, water, and sewage lines in the West Bank. Emergency crews have been unable to respond to hundreds of calls per day, because they can't reach people in need.
"They are imposing conditions, materially and psychologically, that make people feel: Gaza is coming to you," Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin told the Times. "There is a feeling among Palestinians across the West Bank that what is coming is very bad—that it will be a plan to kill and expel us."
Since the October 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people, Israeli forces have slaughtered at least 41,455 Palestinians in Gaza and 716 in the West Bank. Across the Palestinian territories, over 100,000 others have been injured over the past year. The bloodshed led to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ in July issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's decadeslong occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must end "as rapidly as possible." Instead, Israel has ramped up attacks on not only the Palestinian territories, but also Lebanon, home to the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
This week's bombing campaign in Lebanon—which has killed at least 569 people—sparked fresh calls for the Biden administration to finally cut off weapons to Israel, as did the new reporting from the Times, which has been accused of pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the assault on Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israeli destruction in the West Bank continues. The International Middle East Media Centerreported that "on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers invaded the town of Beit Ula, west of Hebron in the occupied West Bank's southern part, [and] bulldozed over 20 dunams of land, uprooting more than 600 fruit-bearing trees, and demolishing several agricultural structures and wells."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israel's West Bank Assault Sparks 250% Surge in Killings of Palestinian Kids
"We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the street," said the U.N. agency.
Jul 22, 2024
Three days after the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful, the United Nations children's rights agency said that after decades of being "exposed to horrific violence," the number of children who have been killed in the West Bank since last October has skyrocketed.
Since Israel began its bombardment of the Palestinian territories nearly 10 months ago—with Gaza the primary target of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks, but with West Bank communities also subjected to raids and other violence—143 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The number represents a 250% increase compared to the nine months preceding the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, after which the IDF began retaliating in the occupied territories.
"The situation has deteriorated significantly, coinciding with the escalation of hostilities inside Gaza," said Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF. "We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the streets. The violence needs to stop now."
More than half of the killings have been reported in the cities of Nablus, Tulkarm, and Jenin, the latter of which was the site of a major raid by Israeli forces earlier this month, in which 12 Palestinians were killed. All three cities have seen a rise in "militarized law enforcement operations" over the last two years, said UNICEF, as Israeli soldiers and settlers have stormed parts of the territory " to scare Palestinians out of" their homes, as the International Crisis Group reported last year.
Some of the killings of children in the West Bank over the last 10 months have received international attention, like the Israeli forces' shooting of two children, Basil Suleiman Abu al-Wafa and Adam Samer al-Ghoul, during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in November.
Al-Ghoul, who was nine, was shown on CCTV footage trying to run away from IDF soldiers when he was gunned down.
"Children's right to life must be upheld and children should never be the target of violence, no matter who or where they are," said UNICEF in a statement, noting that more than 440 Palestinian children have also been injured by live ammunition in the West Bank since last October.
The agency said that as the death toll has risen in the West Bank, children have reported being afraid to walk through their own neighborhoods or attend school.
The children killed there since October are among more than 500 Palestinians killed in IDF raids and settler attacks over the last 10 months—more than three times the number killed there in 2022.
Since October, two Israeli children have been killed in fighting the West Bank, said UNICEF.
"The true cost of the violence in the state of Palestine and Israel will be measured in children's lives—those lost and those forever changed by it," said Russell. "What the children desperately need is an end to violence and a lasting political solution to the crisis, so that they can reach their fullest potential in peace and safety."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Amnesty Condemns Israeli Military's 'Shocking' Violence Against West Bank Civilians
"These unlawful killings are in blatant violation of international human rights law," said the rights group.
Feb 05, 2024
While Israeli officials continue to claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Israel Defense Forces are targeting Hamas in their bombardment of occupied Palestine, a new report from Amnesty International on Monday details the extent to which the military has frequently used lethal force against civilians across the West Bank in addition to the more than 27,000 people it has killed in Gaza.
Calling for an investigation into possible war crimes, the group said it had analyzed four cases in which the IDF has used "unlawful lethal force" against people in the occupied West Bank and blocked medical professionals from reaching injured residents, with Amnesty's Crisis Evidence Lab verifying 19 videos and four photos of the incidents.
The events documented in the report account for the deaths of 20 Palestinians, including seven children. Since October 7, when the IDF began attacking the West Bank and Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, at least 360 people have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, including 94 children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty's director of global research, advocacy, and policy, said the surge in unlawful deadly attacks in the West Bank have been perpetrated "under the cover of the relentless bombardment and atrocity crimes in Gaza."
"These unlawful killings are in blatant violation of international human rights law and are committed with impunity in the context of maintaining Israel's institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination over Palestinians," said Guevara-Rosas. "These cases provide shocking evidence of the deadly consequences of Israel's unlawful use of force against Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli authorities, including the Israeli judicial system, have proven shamefully unwilling to ensure justice for Palestinian victims."
The report was released days after a team of Israeli forces disguised themselves as medical staff and civilians and raided Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing three Palestinians who they claimed—without evidence—were planning an attack on Israel.
OCHA has recorded a sharp increase in "search and arrest operations" by the IDF in the occupied West Bank since October 7, with 54% of the 4,382 Palestinians injured in Israel's assault sustaining their injuries during raids.
In the early days of the Israeli onslaught, 13 people, including six children, were killed during a raid on Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem that began on October 19 and went on for 30 hours. IDF soldiers "stormed more than 40 residential homes, destroying personal belongings and drilling holes in the walls for sniper outposts" during the operation, which Israel said was in response to an improvised explosive device that was thrown at border police by Palestinians.
Israeli authorities cut off water and electricity to the camp and used bulldozers to destroy infrastructure, while stopping at least two ambulances from reaching people who were injured.
One person killed in the raid was 15-year-old Taha Mahami, who was "unarmed and posed no threat to the soldiers at the time he was shot, based on witness testimony and videos reviewed by Amnesty International."
"They did not give him a chance. In an instant, my brother was eliminated," said Fatima Mahamid, the victim's sister. "Three bullets were fired without any mercy. The first bullet hit him in the leg. The second—in his stomach. Third, in his eye. There were no confrontations… there was no conflict."
When the children's father, Ibrahim Mahamid, tried to carry his injured son out of the line of fire, he was shot in the back by the IDF, sustaining damage to his internal organs.
"Neither Taha nor Ibrahim Mahamid posed a threat to security forces or anyone else when they were shot," said Amnesty. "This unnecessary use of lethal force should be investigated as possible war crimes of wilful killing and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health."
In another "egregious" incident in October in Tulkarem, two eyewitnesses interviewed by Amnesty described Israeli forces opening fire from a watch tower on a crowd of at least 80 people who were holding a peaceful protest in solidarity with Gaza.
IDF soldiers opened fire on journalists wearing clearly visible "Press" markings as well as on a Palestinian man who was riding past the protest on a bike.
By carrying out such attacks, said Amnesty, Israel is violating international standards including the U.N. Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.
"These standards prohibit the use of force by law enforcement officials unless strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty and require that firearms may only be used as a last resort—when strictly necessary for military personnel or police to protect themselves or others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury," said the group. "Willful killings of protected persons and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to protected persons are grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and war crimes."
Guevara-Rosas said the incidents documented in the report, and the Israeli onslaught in the West Bank and Gaza as a whole, "is a litmus test for the legitimacy and reputation" of the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes war crimes, and that "it cannot afford to fail it."
"In this climate of near total impunity, an international justice system worth its salt must step in," said Guevara-Rosas. "The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court must investigate these killings and injuries as possible war crimes of willful killing and willfully causing great suffering or serious injury."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular