In the West Bank

Jack Gross and Dylan Saba interview Fathi Nimer in Phenomenal World:

On August 28, Israel launched its largest military assault on the West Bank since the Second Intifada more than two decades ago. Targeting Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas—three cities in the north of the territory—“Operation Summer Camps” has killed thirty-nine Palestinians. The military also injured 150 people, arrested dozens more, and demolished critical infrastructure. Stretches of roads were torn up, storefronts were bulldozed, and water and electricity lines were destroyed.

Statements from Israeli security officials indicating that the raids might be the beginning of a protracted military operation have given way to their withdrawal from some of the northern cities. Meanwhile, troops remain active, with raids and arrests reported over the weekend in Nablus and Hebron. (The Israeli military also killed an American-Turkish activist at a demonstration in a village south of Nablus last Friday by shooting her in the head.)

The latest dramatic ground operation and aerial bombardments are less an opening of a new front alongside Gaza and the Lebanese border, and more of an escalation of Israel’s military activity in the territory. Israeli forces enter the occupied West Bank at will, often with the stated objective of targeting Palestinian resistance fighters. Since October 7, over 650 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, over 150 of whom were children. Just days before Operation Summer Camps was launched, settler-soldiers attacked Wadi Rahal, a village near Bethlehem, and killed a Palestinian man; two weeks before his murder, settlers waged a pogrom in the village of Jit—burning homes and murdering another man. Before October, 2023 was already the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the West Bank.

More here.

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