Tubas, Palestine – December 9. Two more people were killed by a drone-launched missile in Tubas, in the northern West Bank. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in the West Bank since October 7th, to 810, including 169 children, with more than 6,450 injured. Being one of the bloodiest period in over a decade, as the intensity and scope of the apartheid military occupation has grown rapidly.
The incursion began with Israeli Special Forces personnel infiltrating the town in the morning. Shortly after, at least 6 military vehicles blocked Tubas’ main road, occupying it for about 3 and a half hours and preventing the passage of people and vehicles. The military positioned itself with machine guns aimed at houses and stores. They were targeting anyone who tried to approach or pass, firing live ammunition rounds and stun grenades at them.
Four people were arrested, blindfolded and held with their hands tied behind their backs before being taken away. One person was released.
In the meantime, two drones flew overhead at low altitude to “monitor population movements”. One of the drones killed Khalil Magdi Al-Masri and Udi Radwan Daraghma, who were aged 26 and 32, in the Al-Safah area in the north of the city. The bombs dropped killed them instantly, without warning. The army also seized their bodies, preventing the families from mourning their loved ones.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian emergency medical team that is a part of the International Red Cross, reports that the military blocked their workers, and were preventing them from accessing the site of the attack and rescuing any wounded.
While these violent attacks were happening, several local Palestinian youths placed barricades made of tires and dumpsters on the side streets. This was an attempt to restrict the movement of the military to the road blocked by the Israeli vehicles themselves.
This ended one of the (now daily) attacks that the Israeli Army carries out in many West Bank towns and villages. Day and night, the Israeli Army breaks into Palestinian homes to make arrests and searches, or simply to break the peace and safety that communities build together. This is to display to Palestinians that they are living under military occupation.
The low-intensity war Israel is carrying out in the West Bank is claiming victims daily: in the small town of Tubas alone, 66 people have now been killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces since October 7th, 2023. Several dozen others have been arrested.
A few days earlier, the town of Tubas was the target of another violent Israeli raid: on Tuesday, Dec. 3, Tel Aviv’s military raided the Turkish hospital in Tubas, arresting several doctors including the director of the medical centre. The Israeli Army attack came after an Israeli drone struck a car killing two young Palestinian men and injuring a third in the northern town of Aqaba. The ambulance had taken the wounded and the deceased to the Turkish hospital. In an attempt to take the bodies of the young martyrs and arrest the wounded man, the Israeli military held the entire hospital and surrounding streets hostage for hours, smashing several windows inside the building, threatening staff and triggering panic. Numerous times, fire was opened inside the hospital, going so far as to injure one of the civilians gathered in the courtyard of the facility. The doctors were arrested and later released; interviewed by Middle East Eye, they reported receiving insults, beatings and death threats by the Israeli Army, if they did not hand over the bodies of the men they had earlier killed and wounded.
After the military left the facility, funerals were held for the two young men killed to prevent a new attempt to steal the bodies. The situation in the West Bank is becoming increasingly tense. The continuing horrific attacks, deaths and arrests create a fear for what lies ahead.
This dire situation is made worse by the latest statements by the Israeli government and Finance Minister Smotrich, who are openly speaking of a plan to annex the West Bank to Israel by 2025. They would begin with the dismantling of the Civil Administration during Donald Trump’s presidency, a key step toward annexation. These announcements of intention to violate international law and annex the West Bank, do not give any hope of an end to the military occupation and apartheid. On the contrary, it seems only to serve to escalate the already intense situation for the Palestinians living in their homes in the West Bank.