Northern West Bank | By Diana Khwaelid
The Israeli Operation
Palestinians fear the continuation of the Israeli operation in the northern West Bank; Israeli plans are underway.
More than a month since the Israeli military started its “Operation Iron Wall” in the northern West Bank including the Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams Camps (21 January; two days after the Gaza “ceasefire” took effect), Israel has killed at least 60 Palestinians, arrested around 365 displaced over 40,000, and destroyed scores of homes and properties in the occupied West Bank.
On Sunday, Israel deployed tanks in the West Bank for the first time in more than 20 years. Now, Defense Minister Israel Katz has said, the army will remain in some refugee camps “for the next year” to ensure that residents cannot return.
Forced Displacement
Among Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from camps in the northern West Bank, under the threat of weapon fire, many came out and took nothing, and some of them made the wrenching decision to demolish their homes in the camps.
The displaced Palestinians stated that they would return to the camp, and if their homes were lost or demolished, they would rebuild their homes, even if it was necessary to put up a tent and live in that. Palestinians in the camps are aware of Israel’s grand plans to eliminate refugee camps in the West Bank, specifically in the northern bank. Israel claims that these camps are primarily a factory of the Palestinian resistance, but in fact, Israel’s forces have killed dozens of civilians from camps in the northern West Bank. Unarmed Palestinian civilians who did nothing. Their only fault is that they grew up in the camp; they are Palestinians.
Psychological Violence and Show of Force
In a scene that has been absent for more than two decades since the end of the so-called second Palestinian intifada in 2005, Israeli tanks penetrated the city of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank in the neighborhood of “Jabriyat”, which overlooks the empty refugee camp after the Israeli army blew up residential blocks. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in what is the largest displacement since the 1967 war.
Israel announced last Sunday that it had expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps, and Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said that he had instructed Israeli forces to prepare for a long stay of up to a year in the evacuated camps, adding that “there is no return for those who lived there”.
Imposing the Status Quo Militarily, Not by Negotiation
The Palestinian Authority says that one of the most dangerous of the goals of the Israeli military operation is the displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which occurs simultaneously with the bulldozing and construction of roads in large areas of the central bank; this process has already occurred with the Netzarim site, which had been established by various Palestinian geographic and military groups in the central Gaza Strip.
The question remains, whether Israel will succeed in implementing its military plans in the West Bank in general, and in the West Bank camps in particular.
Will the Palestinians survive despite all the challenges imposed by Israel?
