Joan Mas Autonell |
Jenin/Nablus (West Bank), (EFE).- At dawn or in the middle of the night, Israeli forces break into refugee camps or Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank to make arrests. Sometimes there are clashes with young people or local armed groups. There are shots, there are deaths, an almost daily reality since 2022 that worsens this year.
The West Bank is experiencing a spiral of violence with Israel that is one of the longest in a long time. So far in 2023, it has left 42 Palestinians dead, a number not seen since 2015. Many of them were militants, and there are also civilians among the victims.
This circle of tension began almost a year ago, but it gained caliber over the months and led to what is perhaps “the worst security situation” in recent years, remarks EFE Hagar Shezaf, who covers the situation in Palestinian territory for the newspaper Israeli Haaretz.
The violence spreads
This Monday, five members of the armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas died in clashes in a refugee camp in Jericho. They were shooting at Israeli soldiers who were about to arrest them after they attacked a settlement days earlier, in another incident that illustrates the current dynamic.
The Israeli Army also killed a 17-year-old Palestinian in a raid on the city of Nablus yesterday, during an exchange of fire as troops tried to detain “suspected terrorist activities.”
All this also reveals the expansion of incidents. Until recently they were more in the northern West Bank area, but these days have spread to Jericho and the Jordan Valley, “the quietest area of the West Bank”, which is “a sign that things are not calming down and that the conflict proliferates”, indicates Shezaf.
Palestinian analysts point out to EFE that this context is burdened by a cocktail of factors: lack of perspectives, precariousness, an Israeli occupation and colonization system that does not seem to have an end or the failed project of a Palestinian State. This feeds the wheel of a conflict that will continue to turn without an immediate solution, they add.
growing militias
In several cities in the West Bank, especially in the north, new militias such as the Jenin Brigades or the Lions’ Den in Nablus are growing up among impoverished young people marked by the legacy of the conflict, Mustafa Sheta, director of the Teatro cultural center, told EFE. of the Freedom of the Jenin refugee camp.
In this city and Nablus, the two great centers of Palestinian armed resistance, posters of combatants killed by Israeli fire prevail on the walls. For many they are heroes and references.
More and more young people join these groups despite Israeli operations that sometimes result in deaths, including their leaders. But there is always someone who replaces them.
“They have nothing to lose, even if they lose their lives,” Tayser Nasrallah, one of the leaders of the ruling Fatah party in Nablus, told EFE, who often sees young people parade armed through the city or its refugee camps advocating for the fight navy.
“The lack of guarantees to improve their lives” leads many to prioritize weapons “over other forms of resistance,” says Sheta.
To these are added the young people who end up attacking Israelis on their own, without being linked to any group. This is the case of several men who carried out deadly attacks in Israel in 2022, a cycle of attacks that triggered Israeli raids on Palestinian territory.
stressed environment
On January 27, a Palestinian also killed seven people in an Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem settlement, an attack that further raised tensions and was the deadliest attack against Israelis in more than a decade.
The atmosphere had been charged since the day before: the spiral of violence skyrocketed with an Israeli military operation that left 10 Palestinians dead and 20 wounded in the Jenin refugee camp and its surroundings. It was the deadliest raid in the West Bank in years, and left a trail of destruction almost unseen since the Second Intifada (2000-2005), local residents told EFE.
The morgue of the Government Hospital in Jenin was filled with bodies after hours of clashes between Palestinian militiamen and Israeli forces, Jiries Khader, the center’s head nurse, told EFE, who regretted the human cost and against civilians of an operation that collapsed the hospital.
According to Shezaf, another element that increases the harshness and mortality of the clashes is the proliferation of weapons in the West Bank, higher than years before. They are produced by hand, smuggled out of Jordan or stolen from Israeli military bases, which has caused “a massive increase” in the possession of weapons.
Added to this is the assumption of power by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. His coalition includes far-right partners such as Itamar Ben Gvir, who urge a strong hand against the Palestinians and to expand colonization on occupied territory, something that “does not help reduce violence,” concludes Shezaf.
