20th.December.2023
Wednesday
Al-Reef Fair Trade – Palestine
Recent Situation in the West Bank – Palestine
- Daily Invasions of Palestinian Cities, Villages and Refugee Camps in the West Bank.
In the past 2 months, The Israeli occupation forces have been launching a daily campaign of military invasions of different areas in the West Bank, especially the refugee camps in Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarm and Jericho. The main aim is to detain Palestinian men, women and children, most of whom participate in protests and are active in exposing the Israeli occupation’s crimes on different media platforms.
During those invasions, the Israeli forces murdered more than 302 Palestinians since Oct 7th; more than 505 martyrs since the beginning of 2023, making it one of the deadliest years for Palestinians. Not to mention the massive humanitarian catastrophe and genocide that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are going through in which the Israeli military killed more than 20,000 Palestinians (most of whom are children and women), injured more than 52,586 and displaced over 1.7 million Gazans to the South of the Strip which is also continuously getting bombed by Israeli warplanes. It’s undeniable that the past 75 days in 2023 have been the most horrific and atrocious for Palestinians throughout the past 75 years living under the Israeli occupation. Despite all of the struggles, all Palestinians remain resilient and persistent in their fight for liberation and to end the occupation and colonization of their land.
An example of the destruction caused by the Israeli military: On October 19th this year, the Israeli occupation conducted a massive destructive operation in Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarm Governorate in the Northern West Bank. This invasion resulted in the damage of different parts of the refugee camp’s infrastructure and property, the martyrdom of 3 Palestinians and a number of injuries due to an attack by an Israeli piloted aircraft on Nur Shams. This attack is a mere example of the multiple Israeli attacks that have been continuously and frequently repeated on a daily basis, especially on refugee camps, all over the West Bank since the beginning of 2023, particularly after October 7th.
The Israeli forces have been increasing the number and intensity of their checkpoints all over the West Bank between all areas, therefore cutting off the cities, villages and refugee camps from each other and restricting the movement of Palestinians much more than before.
Funeral of 9 Palestinian martyrs who were killed by the Israeli forces’ massacre in Jenin Refugee Camp in the Northern West Bank during an aggression that lasted for 3 days in December.2023:
- The Israeli Occupation’s Campaign of Detaining Palestinians in the West Bank.
Since Oct 7th, Israeli forces detained more than 4575 Palestinians and ordered 2221 administrative detention cases in the West Bank in response to the hostage situation in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian detainees are living in horrible conditions, with lack of food, clothes and blankets and continuous severe assaults and physical harassments by the Israeli occupation jailers; as reported by the Palestinians who were released lately from Israeli prisons through the hostage exchange deals between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian resistance. That’s a part of the “slow death” policy by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian detainees which has been practiced for years through continuous torture and medical negligence.
As a result of the horrific conditions and the torture that Palestinians endure in the Israeli prisons, there have been multiple cases of death of Palestinian detainees inside the Israeli prisons.
According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, there are now 7800 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons including 255 children and 150+ women. Those detainees’ struggles are particularly oppressive for women who get abused, tortured and threatened by Israeli jailers.
This campaign of invasions and arrests is accompanied with harassments and abuse of Palestinians, besides threatening the detainees’ families and vandalizing the property of Palestinians thus causing destruction in the infrastructure of the areas they invade.
Israeli invasion and siege of Jenin Governorate and its Refugee Camp that lasted for 3 days starting from 11th.December this year. This Israeli operation resulted in the murder of 12 Palestinians; 3 of whom were killed by an Israeli piloted aircraft on the refugee camp. The Israeli forces also blockaded the hospitals in the city, preventing injured people from entering them and attacking the Palestinian ambulances. They also detained hundreds of Palestinians throughout the invasion.
- Deterioration of the Economy in the West Bank.
In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation stopped the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which the Israeli government collects on behalf of the Palestinian government and represents the main source of income for the Palestinian Authority. Consequently, for over 2 months, Palestinian public employees have not been getting their monthly salaries. Besides that, around 139,000 Palestinians who work in the Israeli side have also been prevented from getting their jobs back which has been causing an economic disaster in the Palestinian market, therefore, unemployment rates have been rapidly increasing.
All of those Israeli occupational procedures have been utilized to prevent the widespread protests in the West Bank against the aggression on the Gaza Strip, thus, extending the Israeli control over the multiple aspects of Palestinians’ lives.
All of those Israeli oppressive practices and the brutal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been ensuring that the only way to end all of this can only happen by ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinians’ land, starting a real political solution that guarantees Palestinians their independent state according to international law and dealing with the Palestinian struggle as a political case, not as a security issue. Palestinians have been struggling for those causes for 75 years, but after all of that, they are still being criminalized and subjected to collective punishment especially in the Gaza Strip.