Can Israel survive its new war in the West Bank?

Having failed to eradicate Hamas in Gaza, Israel on August 28 began a war on the West Bank, dubbed ‘Operation Summer Camps’.

This Israeli assault on West Bank areas is the largest since 2002, with thousands of Israeli soldiers, supported by helicopters and drones, invading northern West Bank cities, particularly targeting the refugee camps of Jenin, Tubas, and Tulkarem.

The same day, the non-profit Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported: “Immediately after entering the West Bank, the Israeli army began besieging hospitals, ambulances, and emergency centres, replicating its horrifying and systematic policy of breaching and taking control of health institutions that it has employed in the Gaza Strip.

Simultaneously with the storming of these areas, raid and arrest campaigns were carried out in most cities in the West Bank amid gunfire that injured many Palestinians. Since last October, 660 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed as a result of the Israeli military’s systematic, large-scale attacks.

Journalist Mariam Barghouti on August 31 wrote, “I was in Jenin and I cannot explain how ruthless the Israeli military is being. The city is like a ghost town and the refugee camp is a collective torture chamber. Israeli practices in Jenin include: mass arrests including minors, blowing up homes of civilians, denying entry of food, water, medics. The children that managed to escape are traumatized, they’re nothing but tears and shock. Everyone is unable to fully recognize this unprecedented violence and at such an intensity. Jenin is another Gaza in terms of violence being inflicted.”

According to the UN’s OCHA, between 27 August and 2 September, Israeli forces killed 30 Palestinians in the West Bank, including seven children, the highest weekly death toll since November 2023 (by September 6, the number had increased to 39 Palestinians killed, including eight children, and approximately 145 injured).

Those murdered, OCHA notes, include an 82-year-old Palestinian man, shot and killed while attempting to buy bread. Israeli forces also reportedly shot and killed two Palestinian boys, aged 13 and 16, “being chased by Israeli forces while attempting to distribute bread to besieged families near the eastern neighbourhood of Jenin city.” Israeli soldiers also abducted and tortured to death a 50-year-old civilian.

Further, OCHA reports that between October 7, 2023 and September 2 this year, “652 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

The brutality is not only from the Israeli military but also the illegal Jewish colonists who are given carte blanche to attack and kill, Palestinians, as they’ve done for decades, and as I’ve written about before.

According to OCHA, in the same timeframe there were “about 1,300 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, of which over 120 led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries.”

On top of all of this Israeli destruction and carnage are the continued abductions of Palestinian civilians (young and elderly). It has been widely reported from inside Israel, through leaked footage and in countless testimonies from Palestinian hostages, that Israel routinely tortures Palestinians via beatings, electric shocks to genitals, stress positions, psychological torture, near starvation, and also rape to the point of causing serious internal damage.

Palestine Chronicle reported on September 3, citing the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), that “at least 53 Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli custody” between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024.

The article refers to a letter this June from Ronen Bar, head of the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet, to Benjamin Netanyahu this June, putting the number of detainees at 21,000. This is a shocking 11,000 higher than was known in April when I last wrote about the nearly 10,000 Palestinian hostages in Israeli prisons.

Israel wants West Bank wiped off the map

On the morning Israel started its current mini-Gaza bombardment and displacement campaign, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted of the destruction and killing to come, saying, “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. This is a war for everything and we must win it.”

Then, there was Prime Minister Netanyahu during a press conference pointing to his map with the West Bank erased.

In its report, the human rights organization Euromed cites Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth writing that, “an organised evacuation of the Palestinian civilian population will be carried out according to the…combat centres.”

The group notes, “This is a clear indication of Israel’s intention to commit genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank, just as it has done against those in the Gaza Strip.”

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese on September 2 stated, “There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control…The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.”

However, Palestinian resistance groups are putting up a fight. On X, accounts closely following events claim as of September 1, the Jenin Brigade, “Conducted over 15 IED operations, killing & wounding IOF [Israeli occupation forces], significantly damaging their vehicles,“ while the Tulkam Brigade “Conducted 6 IED operations, killing & wounding IOF.”

Al Mayadeen some days later reported similar events, noting, “Palestinian Resistance confronts IOF in Jenin, Tulkarm for 8th day The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Jenin confirmed that its resistance fighters engaged in confrontations with Israeli forces in the al-Hadaf neighborhood using machine guns and IEDs.”

It’s worth remembering the words of Retired Israeli General Yitzhak Brick just a couple of weeks ago, when he stated, ”Israel is sinking deeper into the Gazan mud, losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded, without any chance of achieving the war’s main goal: bringing down Hamas. The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.”

After over ten months of Israel killing and starving the Palestinians of Gaza, it’s safe to say that if the general’s prediction comes true, that would be some slight justice for the Palestinian suffering both since October 7 and before.

EuroMed, in its above-mentioned report, calls on all nations to, “impose strong sanctions on Israel and halt all forms of military, political, and financial assistance. This includes immediately cutting off all arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid; otherwise, these nations will be complicit in and partners in the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, including the crime of genocide.”

Given that the so-called international community has colossally failed Palestinians in allowing Israel to slaughter, starve and torture them, halting arms supplies to Israel and imposing sanctions is the least countries could do.