Israel’s war on the West Bank – aided by the PA
JVL Introduction
The attempts to destroy Gaza are now being echoed in the West Bank with c 40,000 people displaced from refugee camps, where homes are being destroyed and new roads laid to prevent rebuilding. As we had previously published, the Palestinian Authority operated their own clampdown, especially in Jenin Camp for 52 days after which the Israeli Army has come.
This article argues that there is a particular purpose in demolitions in refugee camps as their presence implies a right to return (so far denied) “Four refugee camps – Jenin, Nur Shams, Tulkarm and Faraa – have been almost fully emptied, with thousands of refugees forced to evacuate after Israeli forces destroyed hundreds of buildings and levelled much of their infrastructure.”
Furthermore, demolitions have increased with several villages in the South Hebron Hills suffering yet again last week. There had been a dramatic rise in the number of West Bank Palestinians killed in the year leading up to October 7th 2023 and it has risen exponentially since then, along with huge numbers of arrests.
LL
This article was originally published by The New Arab on Tue 18 Feb 2025. Read the original here.
'Iron Wall': How Israel is demographically re-engineering the West Bank
In-depth: Israel has displaced over 40,000 Palestinian refugees and destroyed four camps, stoking fears it seeks to erase the refugee question altogether.
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HAVING DONE
THEIR WORST
Israeli tanks
are reversing out of Gaza
and our opinions
will not stop them
heading north to Lebanon
or driving to the West Bank
to continue killing Arabs
and supporting
illegal settlements. It’s
the nature of democracy
in the west that objections
without action alters nothing
My parents, Joyce
and Wilfred, used
to wonder what I was hoping
to achieve by going
to all those meetings
Something, I suggested
but I know not what