West Bank, East Jerusalem on the Brink of Explosion
IDF raids pushing West Bank close to another intifada, expert says
In a span of 24 hours, the Israeli army has killed six Palestinians and wounded scores more as it steps up raids in the West Bank following attacks by two Palestinians from the territory and three members of Israel’s Arab minority that have killed 14 people in Israel since late March.
On Thursday, “two youths died of injuries sustained in an Israeli attack in the Jenin district,” the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency announced Wednesday night that Israeli forces had arrested a man in the West Bank village of Kobar, about 6 miles northwest of Ramallah, who had escaped from a Palestinian prison and was reportedly planning to carry out an attack in Israel. Israeli forces also arrested three suspected accomplices in the West Bank village of Silwad, 7 miles east of Kobar.
The Israeli army said it was “continuing recent counterterrorism activities,” a week after a Jenin man killed three people in Tel Aviv.
Israeli forces have killed more than 40 Palestinians since January, including 14 in the last two weeks, according to the PA ministry.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called for steps to strengthen Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, by providing economic assistance and measures to weaken Hamas, the Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians say Gantz’s call to bolster the PA is contradicted by the heightened tensions and what they call the Israeli army’s extreme use of force.
“The aspirations of the Palestinians are freedom and an end to the Israeli occupation, and its goal is not the economic interests that Israel speaks of,” Jihad Harb, an expert on Palestinian affairs, told The Media Line.
Such “thinking is no longer feasible because the occupation is creating this explosion,” he adds.
At the funeral of the two young men who were killed in Jenin, the crowd chanted, “Down with the olive branch, and long live the gun.”
The cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem declared a general strike on Thursday morning in response to the recent Palestinian deaths, calling on the public “to increase their resistance with Israel.”
Harb says things are heading toward an “explosion.”
“What is happening indicates that we are at the beginning of an explosion in the West Bank. The presence of confrontations and martyrs on a daily basis will lead to a broader response from the Palestinians,” he says.
The Israeli army said in a tweet that its forces arrested several Palestinians overnight, and confiscated weapons, in various parts of the West Bank.
Harb says, “There are long-standing driving factors, but the Israeli encroachment in the West Bank last week brought an explosion closer than we think. We are facing a wave of confrontation that is taking on a more comprehensive character and is expanding more specifically in the West Bank.”
The recent increase in tensions has brought matters close to an intifada (uprising), he adds.
“The barrier of fear has been broken; the fear of death is over. We are facing a situation that we have not seen for a long time. What we have witnessed in the recent days of confrontations on an almost daily basis, including from point-blank range and involving many citizens, is very similar to the first and second intifadas,” Harb says.
US-based Palestinian affairs expert Hasan Awwad told The Media Line the recent events are an indication that the Palestinians are “fed up” with the status quo.
“The message is clear: The street is alive and united, and the people have said ‘no to economic peace,’” he said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday that he hopes to soon sit down with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“I hope that relations between us will continue to grow to this point [a meeting with Abbas], but any such event first requires consultation with the government,” he said in an interview with Army Radio ahead of the Passover holiday that begins on Friday evening.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has repeatedly said he would not meet with Abbas.
“The PA is out of touch. It’s helpless. While Abbas and [his close adviser Hussein] al-Sheikh meet and in constant contact with Gantz and [Israeli Foreign Minister Yair] Lapid, they [the Israeli ministers] issue fiery statements criticizing the same officials they meet,” says Awwad.
Following four deadly attacks in recent weeks, with the latest killing three people and wounding over a dozen more in a busy nightlife area of Tel Aviv on April 7, Israeli security forces ordered additional troops to the Palestinian territories. Bennett said he has given Israeli forces a free hand to “defeat terror” in the West Bank.
Israel warned of an escalation weeks before Ramadan began on the evening of April 2. In past years the Muslim holy month has seen an increase in tensions centering on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound/Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The last time Israeli and Palestinian negotiation teams met was in April 2014. Harb argues that the lack of progress on the political path has a lot to do with the current spike in violence.
“Young people feel that there is no future in freedom, equality, dignity, or their chances for a happy life. This creates a state of alienation among young people who are more rebellious. They regain their self-confidence through confrontation, which is their only option today,” he says.
The Palestinian Authority called the situation in the West Bank dangerous and potentially explosive.
Abbas called an emergency meeting of the Palestinian leadership for Sunday evening, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian Presidency, said, “The decisions of the [Palestinian] Central Council will be placed on the leadership’s table in the coming hours because the situation has reached a crossroads due to the dangerous Israeli escalation.”
He added in a press statement, that “UN resolutions alone are no longer sufficient, the occupation is pushing matters to a dead end, Israel is playing with fire and things will not remain as they are.”
Says Harb, “I don’t expect much. The leadership will come out with statements, including a request for the international community to intervene and put pressure on Israel.”
