W
e should not let Israel’s brutal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza blind us to the other brutality taking place in the West Bank. Israel claims that the aim of its offensive in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas, which it designates as a terrorist organisation. In fact, however, it is choking off all sources of life and livelihood in both the West Bank and Gaza, because its true aim is to eliminate the Palestinian people. Hamas does not even operate in the West Bank. But the government has on gangs of settlers, armed them under the pretext of self-defence, and unleashed them against Palestinians in the occupied territories to brutalise, throw them out of their homes and confiscate their property. The expanding Israeli settlements are also expanding arsenals.
Even Washington is appalled. It warned Israel against letting the settlers get their hands on any of the highly lethal M16s the US has sent to Israel. The American-made M16 is the settlers’ weapon of choice for murdering Palestinians.
At least 178 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began last month. Israel’s government-backed settler rampages leave no shadow of a doubt that a ruthless campaign of genocide is rapidly unfolding in Palestine. Eyewitnesses in the West Bank have seen Palestinians murdered in cold blood in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Khalil, and Bethlehem sometimes by settlers under the protection of the army and sometimes by the army itself during its raids in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Khalil, Bethlehem, Tolkaram and elsewhere. Israel bombed the Jenin Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank and its soldiers stormed the camp.
They also stormed the Balata Camp in Nablus, killing 17 and wounding dozens of women and children. The Israeli occupation forces have been engaged in daily raids in the West Bank since the war began in Gaza. They have arrested 2,280 Palestinians in the West Bank in a month, according to organisations for prisoner affairs. Surely this cannot be called a war against Hamas.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 November, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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