The past two weeks marked an unprecedented escalation in the central occupied West Bank, particularly in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate. On Friday, September 19, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) claimed that it arrested a cell allegedly manufacturing rockets intended to be launched at Israeli targets.
A number of Palestinian men were arrested in a building near Ramallah in a joint raid carried out by IOF soldiers, officers of the Israel Security Agency (known as Shin Bet), and members of the so-called National Counter-Terrorism Unit (also known as the Yamam).
The IOF also announced that it confiscated dozens of rocket parts, and two completed rockets without warheads from the site. The Israeli military said that the operation to bust the cell was carried out after IOF troops found a crude rocket, which had been launched from Ramallah’s northwestern town of Kafr Ni’ma as a test.
Israeli channel N12 News reported on Tuesday, September 30, that the commander of the cell confessed during the interrogation, following his detention, that he planned to launch rockets at Tel Aviv in retaliation for the ongoing Israeli genocidal aggression on Gaza.
The suspect further admitted that he was funded by a brother and a friend to “start producing explosives and conduct experiments”.
IOF claims to have found a new weaponry cache on Wednesday
In a fresh separate incident, the IOF announced early Wednesday, October 1, that it confiscated 15 homemade rockets and other types of explosives and arms during a joint operation with Shin Bet personnel and Israeli Border police officers in Beitunia city, west of Ramallah.
According to Shin Beit, investigations conducted of the Ramallah cell, which they arrested last week, led them to the Beitunia cache, where the weaponry was stockpiled.
Rockets proliferate across the West Bank
In between the two incidents that stunned the Israeli security institution in Ramallah, the IOF revealed that it found on Wednesday, September 24, an old makeshift rocket in an open area in the West Bank’s northern governorate of Tulkarm.
Initial reports indicated that the rocket may have not been launched, or was only designed for short-range use as it was found with no propelling engine.
Palestinian resistance proves to be active in the central West Bank after Israel pursued them in the north
The Saraya Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, announced on Thursday, September 25, that its fighters, who are affiliated with the Al-Bireh Brigade, detonated “Sejjil 2” explosive devices at an Israeli military point near the illegal settlement of Psagot, adjacent to the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
About one week earlier, the Saraya Al-Quds-affiliated Ramallah Brigade claimed responsibility for an ambush attack, which targeted an Israeli vehicle with “Sejjil 2” explosives as well, on the Allon settlement road, near the West Bank’s northern governorate of Nablus.
The attack came a few days after the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and Saraya Al-Quds carried out two similar ambushes in the northern governorates of Jenin and Tulkarm.
The new developments have proven that crushing Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank was nothing but a myth that Netanyahu’s government has chosen to believe and broadcast.
While Israel’s deadly “Iron Wall” operation has struggled to eliminate resistance groups in the northern parts of the occupied West Bank for over eight months, these groups are still operating across the entire occupied territory, including in Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
This in turn may make the central governorate the focus of Israel’s upcoming large-scale military operations, although it has, for decades, been perceived as devoid of resistance.
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