On Wednesday, Israel launched a major military assault on the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army deployed hundreds of soldiers, armoured vehicles, bulldozers, drones and fighter jets to try to destroy the armed resistance in the regions of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.
At least 18 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, and scores have been injured.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz has called on the Israeli army to force Palestinians to evacuate from the northern West Bank. The military has announced a “voluntary evacuation”.
This Israeli talk of forced expulsion masked under the humanitarian term “evacuation” is raising fears that the West Bank will follow the fate of Gaza in terms of massive destruction and displacement.
If this does take place, it would be a major escalation of the Israeli government’s strategy of gradual dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank, which has been carried out directly through military means and settler attacks but also indirectly – through the purposeful degradation of all aspects of Palestinian life.
Over the past few years, the Israeli army has regularly carried out military raids in the West Bank, trying to destroy the rising armed resistance movement in the occupied territory, fuelled by popular anger against the Israeli occupation and especially the intensified Jewish settler activity and Israeli takeover of Palestinian properties in occupied East Jerusalem and elsewhere.
The Israeli army has used these raids not only to kill resistance fighters and civilians but also to bulldoze any infrastructure that the attacked Palestinian communities may have in an act of collective punishment. According to the United Nations, the Israeli military has killed more than 600 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7.
Violence is not carried out solely by the Israeli army. The Israeli government has empowered and encouraged Jewish settlers to attack Palestinian communities as well. This was the case before October 7, but since then, settler attacks have skyrocketed.
In the first 10 months of the war, the UN recorded 1,250 attacks by Jewish settlers; in 120 of them, Palestinians were killed or injured, and in 1,000 of them, Palestinian property was damaged. Settlers have also attacked Palestinian communities, expelling their residents from their own land and homes. More than 1,200 Palestinians have been forced out of their homes by Jewish settlers. More than 3,000 have been displaced by the Israeli army demolishing Palestinian homes.
But it is not just brutal force that Israel is using against the Palestinians in the West Bank. The Israeli authorities have weaponised all levers of colonial control they have over the occupied territory to make life impossible for the Palestinian population. On a recent trip to the West Bank, I witnessed firsthand these brutal realities of Israel’s settler colonialism.
The Israeli government has long restricted mobility for Palestinians within the occupied West Bank, building “Jewish only” roads, segregation walls and checkpoints across the territory. Since October 7, it has accelerated building infrastructure on Palestinian land. This is evident on Road 60 in the stretch connecting Jerusalem to Jewish settlements in Hebron, where new road lanes are being constructed, even in areas where lanes were added just a year ago.
Since October 7, the movement of Palestinians between villages and towns has been further restricted. The number of Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks and gates has increased from about 200 in October to more than 790 by early June. Some roads connecting communities are only open for limited hours while flying checkpoints and roadblocks are set up at the whim of soldiers, often without any legitimate security justification.
So while Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank are well connected with roads and infrastructure, the areas where the Palestinian population lives are transformed into Bantustans disconnected from each other.
This affects all aspects of Palestinians’ lives. Something as simple as going to university could be impeded. While visiting my friend Walid in a village on the outskirts of Nablus, I spoke to his two daughters who are students at a university in the city.
“We usually have to stop at the main checkpoint in Huwara. This stop can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours,” one of them told me while the other added: “But our main concern isn’t the checkpoints; it’s the settlers who throw stones at cars.”
Apart from the disruptive impact restricted mobility has on everyday Palestinian life, it is also severely damaging the already fragile Palestinian economy. Trucks carrying food, raw materials and other goods must pass through Israeli checkpoints, where they often get stuck for hours, increasing both the cost and time required for transport. As a result, food prices have risen significantly since October 7.
Self-sufficiency in food has been a matter of pride for Palestinians, who have a strong agricultural tradition. But that is also systematically undermined by the Israeli colonial authorities. Apart from expanding illegal Jewish settlements and military zones that restrict access to private Palestinian lands, Israel is systematically trying to prevent Palestinians from using their lands for agriculture. The most effective way to do that has been encouraging Jewish settlers’ attacks.
In Beit Jala, I met with my old classmate George, who owns a piece of land near Israeli colonial settlements. He told me he could not cultivate it because he feared being attacked by Jewish settlers, which had happened to other farmers. He explained he lost the income that he would normally get from selling olive oil from olive trees and fresh produce he would grow on that land.
Israel is also in full control of key resources in the West Bank, like water. It diverts water from Palestinian towns and villages to illegal Jewish settlements. As a result, there is a perpetual water crisis across the occupied territory, which the colonial authorities have purposefully made worse since October 7 by restricting even more the supply of water.
During my trip, I visited Mariam in one of the villages on the outskirts of Bethlehem. She told me they receive water from the municipality only once a month and only for a few hours. The rest of the time they use water that accumulates in a small well on their property and, when that runs out, they buy from tanker trucks. She added that they are considered lucky compared with other neighbourhoods, where water is supplied only every two or three months.
While destroying the local economy and agriculture, Israel has also intensified its efforts to eliminate the two other major sources of income for Palestinians: employment by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and by Israeli companies.
The PA-run public sector employs 21 percent of the Palestinian workforce, accounting for about 130,000 employees. Over the past few years, the PA has struggled to pay salaries in full due to Israel constantly withholding tax revenue it is supposed to transfer to the PA’s accounts. The situation has only gotten worse since October 7.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Finance, since October 7, Israel has kept about $500m of Palestinian tax revenue. Since 2019, it has withheld another $600m. Public employees have been receiving 40 to 60 percent of their salaries.
After October 7, the Israeli government also banned Palestinians from working for Israeli employers. As a result, more than 200,000 workers have lost their jobs. A few thousand still manage to smuggle themselves into Israeli sites for work. Tawhid, one such worker, told me he has an agreement with a local contractor who arranges transportation and work. He just has to go over the segregation wall. When I asked what would happen if he were caught, he replied: “They might beat me or imprison me, as has happened to many workers, but I have no other option to survive.”
The economic war Israel is waging has resulted in the poverty rate rising from 38.8 percent before October 7 to 60.7 percent, according to estimates from the UN Development Programme. This sharp increase means many families can no longer afford to pay for food and other necessities and are now dependent on assistance from aid agencies.
Israel’s war on the Palestinians in the West Bank does not stop at destroying their property and livelihoods. It also targets their mental wellbeing through constant surveillance, harassment and physical violence.
The Israeli colonial authorities watch over every aspect of the personal lives of Palestinians through vast networks of surveillance cameras, tapping of telecommunications, and control over the internet and various other technologies, including facial recognition.
Since October 7, this surveillance has only intensified, and Israeli security forces have made it a point to let people know they are being watched.
I met Ahmad who was imprisoned in an Israeli jail for more than five years. He shared with me that he was called recently by an Israeli intelligence officer who told him that if he wanted to stay out of prison, he should refrain from commenting on the situation in Palestine. When Ahmad responded that he wasn’t doing anything that would threaten Israel’s security, the officer replied: “We know, but I’m making you’re aware. We can see what you’re doing and saying at home, in the market and even in your car.”
Apart from the constant torment of pervasive surveillance, Palestinians also face nonstop physical harassment and violence. In areas that are close to illegal Jewish settlements, it is the settlers who are tasked with terrorising the Palestinian population. Elsewhere, it is the Israeli police and security forces.
While travelling on public transportation, I met a man and his teenage son. The boy’s arms were both in casts. The father explained that his son was walking home with friends when they were stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint. The soldiers searched them and their phones. When they discovered a video about the October 7 attacks on his son’s phone, they took the boy aside and beat him for two hours.
The boy’s friends had to carry him away because he was unable to walk. At the hospital, doctors found that both his arms were broken, his body was covered in bruises and he was severely traumatised. When I asked the father if he had filed a complaint, he replied: “How can we file a complaint against occupation soldiers who hold all the power? Doing so would only make us targets, and they might arrest my child.”
Indeed, the shocking number of violent attacks on Palestinians that the UN and human rights organisations have reported are an underestimate because the vast majority of them are not reported.
The goal of the constant harassment, surveillance, deprivation of livelihoods, degradation of living standards, physical violence and killings is to make Palestinians in the West Bank leave – just like the ultimate Israeli goal in Gaza is to expel the Palestinian population there. The pursuit of total elimination of the Palestinian population from historical Palestine will not cease even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government were to collapse.
The lack of international action to stop the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank has shocked Palestinians but has not made them capitulate. If anything, the violent Israeli assault on the northern West Bank is a sign that the Palestinians have chosen resistance even in the face of overwhelming genocidal force.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
