The Israeli genocide in Gaza continues and intensifies with the outbreak of polio — once thought to be eradicated worldwide — among Palestinian children. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians reached a new stage on August 28, when it launched its biggest invasion and assault on the territory in 22 years. The siege lasted 10 days.
Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News wrote on August 30: “Beginning in the predawn hours hundreds of Israeli forces in columns of armored vehicles and bulldozers backed by drones and helicopters stormed into refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas. Israel also carried out drone strikes and snipers have reportedly been firing on people inside Jenin.
“Internet and cell phone service, as well as water and sewage systems, were shut down in parts of the West Bank as Israeli forces conducted house raids. Local residents have reported widespread demolitions of their homes and streets and the blocking of ambulances and medical workers attempting to reach wounded people. Israeli forces surrounded the main hospital in Jenin and have reportedly been searching people entering and exiting the facility.”
“This is an incredible scaling up of the violence of the preceding months and in particular weeks,” said Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, “with a full military assault, destroying hospitals, destroying roads, destroying vital infrastructure which had already been severely damaged during the preceding months, and Voila!, telling the Palestinians to go, ordering mass evacuations.”
Video obtained by CNN “showed bulldozers tearing up a street in a built-up area of Tulkarem, and also moving in convoy through Jenin.
“Additional footage released by Israel’s military showed what it said was a strike on a militant operations room in Nur Shams, a refugee camp near Tulkarem.
“Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the operation had been staged to ‘thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure’, claiming that Iran was working to establish an ‘eastern front’ against Israel.
“’We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required,’ he wrote on social media. ‘This is a war for all intents and purposes, and we must win it.’”
Israel withdrew its forces from Jenin on September 7.
United States President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris —now the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee — supported Israel’s operation in the West Bank as part of their support for the Zionist state’s genocidal war.
In a CNN interview on August 29, Harris repeated that Israel has a right to “self-defense” against the people of the occupied territories. She intends to keep open the military weaponry spigot to Israel with no pressure to change its genocidal policies.
Eyewitness report from Jenin
The Palestinian view of Israeli state terrorism is rarely seen on US television or covered by national media. The main exception is DemocracyNow!
Ahmed Tobasi, artistic director at the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp, described the assault to DN! on August 29, saying residents knew something was different about this invasion and people were very afraid.
“[T]he scenes from Gaza, what happened to Gaza, the people in the camp are really afraid that’s going to happen to them, because it’s obvious that Israel is punishing the people, punishing the civilians …. The camp is surrounded with army. All of the entrances are closed. They already bulldozed all the streets, all the alleyways in the camp. And even the bulldozing is really deep. That means no cars, no ambulances can go inside.
“And many people tried to evacuate the camp … [I]t’s very dangerous, because if you are a man above 15 or 14, you could be shot if you are moving or try to sneaking out from the camp.
Tobasi said people went without food, and electricity supplies and internet access were disrupted.
“[Y]ou hear the drones very close, the vehicles all around, the bombing … the scene repeating itself again and again. And we don’t know, like, what is the end, how long, what we should do. And it’s, obviously, the Israelis want to tell the communities, the civilians of these areas: ‘You have only two choices: You die here, or you leave, are displaced to other country.’
“It is not violence. It’s a genocide from the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. It’s not a conflict. It’s a genocide, a war, ethnic cleansing...
“[T]o be honest, [with the number rising] from 100,000 settlers to 850,000 in the West Bank, West Bank is not anymore West Bank. It’s a little fragment, of Palestinian communities living here and there, and all the connection, all the network, the streets, all controlled by the settlers.
One evening, when Tobasi was with a group trying to return from Ramallah to Jenin, they were surrounded by settlers “who really clearly want to kill you”. They only just escaped in their car.
“They are attacking everywhere. They are putting fire in the houses of the people. They’re shooting. Now they have guns, officially permitted guns from the Israeli government being given to the settlers to shoot Palestinians in very easy cold blood.
“So, we’re not facing only army. We’re facing crazy settlers, groups of crazy people who just want to kill more and more. And the idea is clear. They want to empty West Bank [of] Palestinians.
“[W]hat is happening in Gaza, what is happening in West Bank, we say it again and again, this was planned for 80 years … They want Palestine empty [of] Palestinians, and that’s the only plan. And they will not relax. They will not stop until this happens. Or, inshallah [God willing], it would be a victory for Palestinians, and they will get defeated.”
More than 10,000 Palestinians on the West Bank have been arrested since October 7, with reports of detainees being tortured and sexually abused.
In December, Israeli forces raided the theatre’s offices. Its producer, Mustafa Sheta, was detained without charge and has been in prison for six months.
Tobasi told DN! that they still have no news about Mustafa’s wellbeing and lawyers are not allowed to visit him.
“I’m calling to the American people, to American artists, to American activists … please, you are the one who have to move now and stop this craziness. You have to stop supporting sending bombs to Israel … This military support goes [to] killing artists, children, destroying theaters, killing people, killing women.”
Western reporters are denied access to Gaza by Israel and journalists’ reports are reviewed and vetted before publication. Dozens of Palestinian reporters and their family members have been murdered in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Western journalists are still allowed in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has formal control but no real powers.
Palestinian writer and journalist Mariam Barghouti told DN! on September 9 that during the invasion of the West Bank, journalists were targetted by snipers and "[t]he Israeli military even sent its D9 Caterpillar bulldozers to essentially chase around journalists."
Israel says it is attacking the West Bank to root out “terrorists” in the camps. There are resistance fighters to Israel’s genocide active in Gaza and the West Bank, where people are seeking freedom and self-determination. However, Israel and its US backers twist this around in order to present Israel as the victim, not the oppressor.
‘Open and undeclared war’
Islamic Jihad condemned the IDF’s “comprehensive aggression” on the occupied West Bank, referring to it as an “open and undeclared war”.
In a separate statement, the group's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it targeted and shot down an Israeli drone near Jenin. The group said its fighters targetted Israeli forces with “heavy volleys of direct bullets”.
Hamas called for a “general mobilization … against the occupation and its settlers everywhere on our occupied land”. The group said the Israeli operation was “extensive” and accused the Israeli military of “deliberate destruction of infrastructure using large military forces accompanied by aerial bombardment from drones and warplanes”.
The Palestinian health ministry reported on August 30 that 652 Palestinians, including 150 children, have been killed in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since October 7, with more than 5400 injured.
Prior to the raids by the Israeli military, armed Jewish settlers launched murderous assaults on Palestinian towns in the West Bank. More than 70 armed settlers attacked the village of Jit on August 15, shooting at residents and setting several homes, cars and other property alight, according to the head of the village council, Nasser Sedda. These assaults were protected by the police and IDF.
Regardless of whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is elected President of the US in November, the US ruling class parties support the Zionist state’s war on the Palestinians.
The armed and popular resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, and solidarity from around the world is the only force that will stop the US and Israel’s terrorism and war crimes.