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While Israel continues its devastating war on… Gaza strip Since last October 7, it has also been waging a parallel war in the occupied West Bank in an attempt to obstruct the opening of a new front against it.
According to what experts say, Israel has worked to militarize the West Bank, cutting off its connections with military checkpoints and gates, launching an arrest campaign that targeted about 2,520 Palestinians, and attacking hotspots of resistance in Embryo And Tulkarm, while the number of martyrs in the West Bank reached about 200 martyrs since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Despite this, experts believe that there are no guarantees that the situation in the West Bank will remain as it is.
Militarizing the West Bank
Director of the Yabous Center for Strategic Studies, Suleiman Bisharat, believes that Israel has worked to militarize the West Bank, by cutting it off with military checkpoints.
He pointed out that it must be noted that the state of struggle in the West Bank is controlled by a group of variables, foremost among which are Israeli measures of military operations, closures, incursions, and killings, and there has been a significant escalation – since the seventh of last October – in these Israeli practices. Which prevents Palestinians from being granted the right to participate in mass events that express their rejection of the war on Gaza.
He said that the Israeli army is taking advantage of the international cover in its war on Gaza to carry out more powerful and focused incursions into the West Bank, as happened in the Jenin and Tulkarm camps, which resulted in the martyrdom of many citizens and the destruction of infrastructure, which also affected the ability of armed groups to engage in resistance work. Stronger and more influential.
Dozens of Israeli military checkpoints, of course, prevent citizens from reaching points of contact with the occupation soldiers, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they also definitely constitute an obstacle to the militants’ ability to target many Israeli military sites in the West Bank.
Bisharat considered that all of these factors reflect, directly or indirectly, on the general character of the struggle in the West Bank.
There are no guarantees to isolate the West Bank
For his part, Bilal Al-Shobaki, professor of political science at Hebron University, said that Israel is aware that there are no guarantees that the West Bank will remain outside the confrontation.
He pointed out that the movement in the West Bank needs political will to be a popular, mass movement.
Al-Shoubaki said that the Israeli authorities took a set of exceptional measures in the West Bank after the seventh of last October, the summary of which is the restriction of citizens’ movement and their ability to move around by closing towns and cities with dirt barriers and gates, which prevented communication and the ability to engage in public actions.
He pointed out that the Israeli army took proactive steps, including moving the checkpoints relatively inside the cities, to make it difficult for the marches to reach the friction points, and carrying out a major arrest campaign in the West Bank of figures expected to contribute to mobilizing the street, meaning that it carried out preemptive strikes.
The Palestinian expert said that Israel fears street action more than individual military action, pointing also to the military operations launched by Israel in the West Bank to strike military outposts, such as in the Jenin and Nour Shams camps, taking advantage of the international preoccupation with the war on Gaza.
The bank is on fire
For his part, director of the Jerusalem Center for Studies, Ahmed Rafiq Awad, believes that the West Bank appears to be on fire, despite Israeli policies restricting movement within it.
He added that the Palestinian street is no longer inclined to participate in large popular uprisings, but the state of struggle remains intense.
He pointed out that Israel is practicing a policy that it believes is effective in confronting the resistance in the West Bank, by arresting hundreds, closing streets, and forcing settlers to confront and beat the Palestinians.
