Israel continues to wreak havoc across the West Bank : Peoples Dispatch
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Analysts suggest that the Israeli escalation in the occupied territory foreshadows an impending boiling point for Palestinians, amid severe economic contraction, and the lack of a political horizon.

Three weeks after Israel launched its second large-scale military operation of the year in the West Bank, stories about brutality faced by Palestinian residents continue to emerge daily.

Israel has continued to wreak havoc in different areas of the occupied territory, killing and detaining Palestinians on a daily basis, and also carrying out property demolitions.

In the past few days, Israel killed five Palestinians, including three children, in different governorates of the West Bank.

On Saturday, December 13, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) shot dead Mohammad Abahra, 16, in Silat al-Harithiya village in the northern governorate of Jenin.

One day later, the IOF killed Mohammad al-Shrouf, 23, in the northern governorate of Hebron, and withheld his body.

Meanwhile, Palestinian detainee, Sakhr Zaoul, 26, from the southern governorate of Bethlehem died in the Israeli Ofer prison that same day.

Zaoul is one of 323 Palestinian prisoners, who have died in Israeli jails since 1967, and one of the over 100, who passed away since October 7, 2023, presumably due to Israel’s brutal crackdown on the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement.

Read More: The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement: the struggle behind bars

Also in Bethlehem, on Monday, December 15, Ammar Sabah, 16, was killed by Israeli soldiers during a raid in the town of Tuqu’, southeast of the governorate.

Muhib Jibril, another 16-year-old child from the same town, was killed by an illegal Israeli settler, on Tuesday, December 16, following the funeral procession of Sabah.

Israel continues arrests of Palestinians

The IOF has continued to arrest Palestinians in a wholesale manner, as part of its extensive military campaign in the West Bank.

Prisoners’ rights groups, reported on Wednesday, December 17, that a child and a number of recently-freed prisoners, were among 40 Palestinians arrested by the IOF during raids that targeted the governorates of Salfit, Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarm, and Hebron.

IOF issues order to demolish 25 buildings in Tulkarm’s Nur Shams refugee camp

Killings and detentions have not been the only blatant violations committed by Israel this week. The IOF issued an order on Sunday to demolish 25 residential buildings inside Nur shams refugee camp in the northern governorate of Tulkarm.

According to Faisal Salama, the head of the popular committee for the Tulkarm camp, near Nur Shams, 100 Palestinian families will be affected by the order.

The surge in Israeli violence across the West Bank has been unfolding hand in hand with the most severe contraction in the Palestinian economy in the last two years, as per a report published by the United Nations Trade & Development (UNCTAD) in November.

It has also taken place after Israel’s two-year genocidal aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and amid the lack of a political horizon following the Oslo Accords, which has, in turn, sidelined the Palestinian national aspiration for liberation.

Analysts argue that all these factors could push the situation in the West Bank to the brink of explosion in the near term.

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