The formal cease-fire in Gaza, which began on Sunday, like the cease-fire in Lebanon, marked Israel’s immediate reorientation to a new front.
Last time it was from the conflict with Hezbollah over the occupation of the entire Syrian Golan Heights, after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and recently from the war against Hamas, to the offensive on the refugee camp in Jenin on the West Bank.
At least 10 Palestinians were killed and 25 arrested in a raid by the Israeli army on that city, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli military said it was continuing Operation Iron Wall in Jenin and had killed “more than 10 terrorists”, targeted infrastructure and defused explosive devices.
“Operation ‘Iron Wall’ in the Jenin refugee camp is a change in the security doctrine of the Israeli army in Judea and Samaria. A high-intensity operation to eliminate terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure of the camp, without the re-emergence of terror in the camp once the operation is over, is the number one lesson of the method repeated raids in the Gaza Strip,” said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
By the way, Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for the West Bank, where about three million Palestinians and about 490,000 Israeli settlers live, in illegal settlements, according to international law.
The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told the AFP news agency that an “invasion of the camp” was taking place.
“It happened quickly, Apache helicopters in the sky and Israeli military vehicles everywhere,” the official said, according to Euronews.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted local sources as saying that Israeli forces were “completely besieging” the Jenin camp and that armored bulldozers had dug up several streets.
It added that the director of the hospital, Visam Bakr, said that three doctors and two nurses were among the wounded in the shooting by Israeli forces.
Palestinian security forces reportedly withdrew from some positions around the Jenin camp before Israeli forces moved in on Tuesday morning.
In his previous term, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advocated partial annexation of the West Bank, but relented in 2020 under international pressure and after an agreement to normalize relations with the UAE.
With President Donald Trump back in the White House, pro-annexation Israelis hope to rekindle the idea. Namely, the Minister of Finance and far-right Bezalel Smotrich, who himself is a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 will be “the year of the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria”.
Izrael Gantz, head of the Yesh Council, the umbrella organization for the West Bank settlement’s municipal councils, insisted that the status quo cannot continue.
“The State of Israel must make a decision. Without sovereignty, no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity. We will do everything in our power to establish Israel’s sovereignty, at least over Area C,” he said, referring to the territory under exclusively Israeli administration. which covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Israeli settlements.
For the “Jerusalem Post”, Gantz said that the Trump administration could give Israel the opportunity to continue building settlements in the West Bank.
He added that Israel now not only has the opportunity to continue with the expansion of settlements, but also that the annexation of the West Bank “is on the table, but it takes time.”
However, there is opposition to such a move within the US administration, as it would undermine the Abrahamic Accords signed in September 2020, which seek to normalize relations between Israel and Arab nations.
Trump is not only strongly promoting this agreement as a blueprint for establishing lasting peace in the Middle East, but has pressured Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire with Hamas even before he took office.
Palestinian political analyst Jihad Harb interprets the incursion into Jenin as “a political maneuver aimed at appeasing far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich and the extreme right in order to preserve the government coalition after dissatisfaction with the Gaza ceasefire agreement.”
The Palestinian Christian movement Kairos also spoke out, warning that the cease-fire agreement in Gaza must not serve as a preparation of the ground for further Israeli annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank, or another wave of killing and displacement of Palestinians in that area.
“We emphasize that what is happening in Gaza must not come at the expense of Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem. The Gaza ceasefire agreement must not pave the way for further Israeli annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank or another wave of killing, maiming , the destruction and displacement of Palestinians there, with the blessing of some Western superpowers who support colonial policies and practices against our people,” Kairos Palestine said in a statement.
They added that “the suffering of Gaza cannot be used as a cover for ignoring or worsening the situation of Palestinians in other parts of Palestine.”
(Vijesti.ba)
