Today, Wednesday, a young Palestinian man was killed by bullets from the occupation army in Hebron, south of the West Bank, on the pretext of attempting to carry out a ramming attack, bringing the number of martyrs in the West Bank since last October 7 to 303.
A number of young Palestinians were also injured and arrested in confrontations that followed the dawn raid of cities and towns in the West Bank by the occupation army. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that 25 people were arrested, bringing the number of Palestinian detainees in the West Bank since Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” to 4,630 detainees.
This comes as Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir today defended the violence of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, denying that there was “any violence on the part of settlers,” as he claimed.
A martyr in Hebron
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said – in a statement – that “the General Authority for Civil Affairs (the point of contact with the Israeli side) informed it of the martyrdom of the young man, Basil Wajih Al-Muhtaseb (28 years old), by occupation bullets near the town of Sa’ir, north of Hebron.”
The occupation army also said – in a tweet on the
Intrusions
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent had previously reported clashes between young men and occupation forces in the town of Yamoun, west of Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
The Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) said that the Israeli army carried out raids and searches that affected many homes in the town, and also surrounded a house to pressure a young man to surrender himself, and 3 Palestinian youths were injured during the raid.
In the city of Hebron, the occupation forces raided the house of the martyr Nasrallah al-Qawasmi, stayed there for two hours, dug its interior walls and took their measurements in preparation for its demolition, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune correspondent.
It also stormed the town of Kafr al-Dik, west of Salfit Governorate, and the town of Jayyus, east of Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank.
Local Palestinian platforms published scenes of the Israeli occupation forces storming the town of Silwad, north of the city of Ramallah. They also stormed – accompanied by a military bulldozer – the city of Tubas and the town of Tammoun, north of the West Bank. The resistance fighters responded to the storming by firing bullets.
In Nablus, in the northern West Bank, the occupation forces stormed the town of Qaryut, amid heavy firing of sound and gas bombs in the center and west of the town.
The occupation forces launched a massive campaign of raids and searches of citizens’ homes and assaulted them. They also arrested a number of residents and transferred them to one of the homes, which they raided and turned into an arrest and investigation center, and confiscated a number of agricultural tractors.
Local platforms published scenes of the occupation forces storming the eastern town of Laban and the Balata camp in Nablus.
Settler violence
This field escalation comes at a time when Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir defended the violence of Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Many countries, including the United States, have called on Israel in recent months to take measures to stop settler violence after it increased significantly amid fears that it would lead to an explosion in the situation in the West Bank.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted Ben Gvir, leader of the extreme right-wing “Jewish Power” party, as saying during a weekly session to assess the situation, “The police provided clear statements. There is no violence on the part of the settlers.” He added, “This is a marginal phenomenon, and there is a sharp decline in the actions of Jews against Arabs,” he said.
The broadcasting organization indicated that then a representative of the Israeli National Security Council (which it did not name) intervened, explaining, “We are aware of the police data, but we received other data from the army and the General Security Service (Shin Bet).”
The commission added: “Ben Gvir got angry and said: What do you mean? Since when do the army and the Shin Bet conduct such investigations and publish statistics? There is one body that collects data on crimes, and that is the Israel Police.”
It quoted an unnamed Shin Bet representative as saying, “There is indeed a contradiction between police data and army data, but we believe that police data do not reflect all events.”
It is noteworthy that since the outbreak of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Israeli army has intensified its military operations in the West Bank and increased the pace of incursions and raids into towns and camps, leaving dozens of victims and hundreds of detainees, and settler attacks against Palestinian citizens have also increased.