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NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR GAZA, IDF LAUNCHES LARGEST ATTACK ON WEST
BANK IN DECADES  
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Edward Carver
August 28, 2024
Common Dreams
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_ "This is the predictable culmination of the actions of an Israeli
regime that has been fully empowered, armed, supported, and encouraged
by the Biden-Harris administration in its genocidal war," Jeremy
Scahill said. _

Israeli security forces in the city of Jenin, in the occupied West
Bank, on Wednesday., Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

 

Israeli forces on Wednesday conducted a series of deadly raids in the
West Bank, killing at least 10 Palestinians in the largest assault on
the occupied territory in over two decades.

In coordinated raids on four cities in the northern West Bank, Israel
[[link removed]] employed hundreds of ground
troops as well as fighter aircraft, drones, and bulldozers. Israel
Katz, Israel's foreign minister, indicated that this was a planned
escalation, saying the military was operating in "full force."
He called for
[[link removed]] evacuations in
the West Bank, as in Gaza [[link removed]],
and "whatever steps are required," explaining that "this is a war for
everything and we must win it."

The incursion follows a recent uptick in Israeli violence in the West
Bank—5 Palestinians, including two children, were killed in an
airstrike there on Monday—and came on the same day that the United
Nations Human Rights Office released a statement
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it.

Humanitarian and pro-Palestinian voices denounced Wednesday's
offensive. Aida Touma-Suleiman, an Israeli-Arab member of the
Knesset, called
[[link removed]] it the
"Gazafication of all Palestinian land" and part of a plan to
"ethnically cleanse the West Bank."

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician and politician, told
[[link removed]]_Democracy
Now!_ that Israeli leaders, some of whom he named as "fascist," are
"trying to repeat the Nakba."

"They are trying to repeat the same ethnic cleansing, the same
genocide that is committed in Gaza," he added.

Progressives in the U.S., Israel's primary diplomatic ally and arms
supplier, argued that Wednesday's incursion was the direct result of
American foreign policy choices.

"This is the predictable culmination of the actions of an Israeli
regime that has been fully empowered, armed, supported, and encouraged
by the Biden-Harris administration in its genocidal war," Jeremy
Scahill, a co-founder of _The Intercept_ who recently formed a new
investigative outlet called _Drop Site News_, wrote
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media.

"Israel has received the message from Biden and Harris loud and clear
for almost 11 months: There is no scale of war crimes too great for
the administration to take any meaningful steps to stop Israel’s
mass slaughter operations," Scahill added
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
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Democratic presidential nominee.

Israeli raids on the cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, and Tulkarem
began early Wednesday. _Al Jazeera_reported
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it was the largest Israeli incursion into the West Bank since 2002.

The Israeli military said that the Palestinians who were killed in the
West Bank were "armed terrorists who posed a threat to security
forces." Israeli media reports indicated that the raids are expected
to continue for several days.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement relayed to _Al
Jazeera_ on Wednesday that Israeli forces had disrupted medical and
emergency services at several locations in the West Bank. Israeli
forces stormed the Al-Far'a refugee camp, detained the PRCS team
there, and cut off their communications, according to 
[[link removed]]PRCS.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza
since 1967. The International Court of Justice issued
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advisory opinion last month declaring the occupation of these
Palestinian territories unlawful, saying it must end "as rapidly as
possible."

Most of the world's nations have long declared Israeli settlements in
the West Bank to be illegal
[[link removed]] under
international law, a position that Israel disputes. Settler violence
has increased markedly since October 7 under cover of the even greater
carnage in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 40,000
Palestinians. Hamas and allied militant groups killed more than 1,100
Israelis in a brutal massacre on October 7.

In the West Bank, where nightly raids have become commonplace, Israeli
forces and settlers have killed 646 people over the last 11 months,
including 148 children, according to Palestinian health officials.

In addition to the military raid that killed five on Monday, an
Israeli settler or reservist attack in Wadi Rahal village reportedly
led to a Palestinian man being shot in the back, according to
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news service.

Omar Baddar, a Middle East political analyst, argued that Wednesday's
incursion was part of a longstanding Israeli plan.

"I think the context of it is worth noting, which is the fact that
Israel has been intending to annex and ethnically cleanse huge parts
of the West Bank for a very, very long time," Baddar told _Al
Jazeera_.

In its condemnation of Israeli aggression in the West Bank, the U.N.
Human Rights Office wrote
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the situation "could worsen dramatically if [Israeli security forces]
continue to systematically use unlawful lethal force and ignore
violence perpetrated by settlers."

The agency warned of "extrajudicial executions and other unlawful
killings and destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure," and
said that the settler violence was made possible by political support
from Israel's leadership.

"The U.N. Human Rights Office has reported for years on settlers
attacking Palestinian communities in their land in the West Bank with
impunity," the statement says. "This longstanding trend has
dramatically escalated since October 7, as the settler movement, with
political backing at the highest levels of Israeli government, has
seized the opportunity to escalate attacks against Palestinians,
forcing them to leave their lands, and expand settlements and Israel's
control over the West Bank."

The assault on the West Bank has not stopped Israel from continuing
its assault on Gaza. Israeli forces killed eight Gazans in a strike on
a school-turned-shelter in eastern Deir el-Balah, _Al
Jazeera_reported
[[link removed]].

_Edward Carver is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* West Bank
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* Occupied Territory
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* IDF
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* Ground Invasion
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