The West Bank and attempts to consolidate the “unity of the areas” in light of the war on Gaza | Policy

In addition to the war waged by the Israeli occupation against the Gaza Strip, the West Bank regions were one of the main arenas of confrontation that were troubling Israel even before October 7, 2023. After that, the Palestinian organizations in the West Bank intensified, especially the two Islamic resistance movements (Hamas). and Islamic Jihad, their efforts to carry out specific operations, in an effort to consolidate “the unity of the battlefields.”

The Tel Aviv Tribune Institute for Studies published a report entitled “The West Bank Confrontations and their Repercussions in the Context of the War on Gaza” by the Palestinian academic and researcher on Israeli affairs, Muhammad Halsa, in which he addressed the context in which the ongoing confrontations in the West Bank are escalating, and the goals of both the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation, all the way to achieving Its repercussions and expected scenarios.

Below we review the most important aspects of the report:

The context of the confrontations in the West Bank

The intensity of the confrontation between the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation in the West Bank increased, after the far-right government came to power in Israel.

The resistance also witnessed major developments in its environment and method of operation, and resistance operations in the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian interior, including Jerusalem, reached 592 operations in the month of May 2021. As for the year 2023, it witnessed a noticeable increase in resistance activities and armed clashes in the cities of the West Bank, and people were killed. There were 37 Israelis, most of them soldiers, while more than 400 others were injured as a result of carrying out more than 8,000 acts of resistance, ranging from shooting, stabbing or stabbing attempt, trampling or trampling attempt, in addition to two missile launches and 9 shooting down reconnaissance aircraft.

With the escalation of resistance work, the military infrastructure of the resistance developed and transcended the division and organizational disagreement between the Fatah and Hamas movements. Groups emerged such as the “Lions’ Den” in Nablus, the Jenin Brigade in the Jenin Camp, the Nour Shams Camp in Tulkarm, the Balata Camp in Nablus, and the Aqabat Jabr Camp in Jericho. And other towns in the north, such as Tubas, Jaba, and others.

After October 7, 2023, and the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” Israel escalated its military and security operations in various areas of the West Bank, especially in Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarm. Arming settlers and including them in military units in the army also contributed to fueling tension in the West Bank.

In practice, over the past seven months, the Palestinian presence has diminished significantly in Area C, which constitutes approximately 60% of the West Bank. The occupation army arrested thousands of Palestinians and demolished homes and infrastructure. The number of military checkpoints in the West Bank also increased, cutting off means of communication between its cities and towns, as their number reached 649 checkpoints and obstacles after the war, an increase of 49 checkpoints.

Objectives of the Israeli escalation in the West Bank

In conjunction with its raging war on the Gaza Strip, Israel seeks to achieve the following goals from its ongoing escalation in the West Bank:

• Firstly: Taking advantage of the atmosphere of war in the Gaza Strip to carry out massive, massive operations using heavy weapons and military aviation without paying attention to criticism or consequences, in the midst of international preoccupation with the war, with the aim of eliminating the armed military structure in the West Bank using more lethal means.
• secondly: Transforming the West Bank into a secondary threat through pre-emptive operations to thwart armed cells and destroy the slogan of “unity of the squares.”
• Third: This escalation, according to the Israeli vision, is important, and it is an essential part of restoring “Israeli deterrence” after what happened on October 7.
• Fourthly: Taking advantage of the atmosphere of war, which is considered a favorable opportunity for the settlers, they exploit it to harness the army, which aligns with their desires to deport and harm the Palestinians.
• Fifth: Israel aspires to establish the intensive military campaigns carried out by its army against the organizational infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank, in one way or another, to facilitate the task of the Palestinian Authority in extending its control and to lay good foundations for arrangements for the day after the war.
• Sixthly: The Israeli escalation also aims to deepen ethnic cleansing and force the Palestinians to displace their lands, especially in Area C, in preparation for controlling them and settling there, by strangling the West Bank with barriers and striking the foundations of survival and freedom of movement. Israeli sources indicated that the settlers took advantage of the escalation in the West Bank to build about 15 new settlement outposts in Area C, in addition to the displacement of Palestinian residents from 15 herding communities.
• Seventh: The West Bank is an area for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to maneuver with the extremist Israeli right-wing forces, which threaten him from time to time to withdraw from the government if he withdraws from the Gaza Strip and stops the war. Therefore, the occupation action in the West Bank is seen as a maneuver and barter tool by Netanyahu to compensate his partners who are leaning on him. They must ensure the stability of his coalition, as the West Bank is more important to the Zionist nationalist right than the Gaza Strip politically and religiously.

The resistance’s goals of escalation in the West Bank

Despite the severity of the Israeli attack on the West Bank, the Palestinian resistance groups were able to raise the level of resistance action in a way that eased the pressure of the Israeli war on Gaza, and was commensurate with the magnitude of the challenges that the West Bank is experiencing in light of Israel’s attempt to take advantage of the climate created by the war to implement what it aspires to, security-wise and politically, in The bank.

Although it can be said that the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank is in a state of development, the development in its operations does not mean denying the difficulties it faces, most notably the overwhelming security superiority of the Israeli occupation.

The occupation has developed a security system that serves its political and strategic goals by dividing areas of the West Bank, tightening its grip on its joints, and equipping control and control tools to control the movement of Palestinians, such as military barriers and bypass roads, which enabled it to besiege Palestinian towns, and prevented “resistance” movement or complete disappearance.

And with all these difficulties and risks The resistance continues to escalate its operations for the following considerations:

• Firstly: The resistance factions are seeking to transform the West Bank into a main support front for the Gaza Strip, which will relieve pressure on the Strip.
• secondly: The escalating resistance operations deepen the occupation government’s crisis and exhaust it in multiple ways, especially economic and security.
• Third: The resistance operations in the West Bank confirm that the fighting spirit of the Palestinians is still present, despite the attempts and efforts of Israel and its Palestinian sympathizers to raise awareness and impose a different social and political context.

However, despite the continuation of resistance operations in the West Bank, its contribution to the battle is limited, such that the occupation is forced to stop the war on Gaza or shorten its duration as much as possible.

Repercussions of the confrontation in the West Bank

Israel continued to build on the calm of the West Bank, especially after the coming of power, and bet that the engineering of consciousness had taken its place in the Palestinian mind and become entrenched. However, the successive uprisings and waves of confrontation that erupted made it the center of gravity in the confrontation with the occupation.

After October 7, 2023, as before, the nucleus of resistance action was growing in the West Bank, through military formations, thus forming a new type of “resistance” to the Israeli occupation, rejecting the principle of domestication in any way.

It is true that the battle of “Al-Aqsa Flood” revealed the depth of the state of evil and alienation that the West Bank is going through, especially with the weakness and fragility of the popular incubator supporting the resistance, but it seems that it also revealed real, noticeable dissatisfaction in Palestinian public opinion towards the “negative neutrality” approach taken by the Authority. Current Palestinian.

Despite the erosion of the legitimacy and dominance of the Palestinian Authority in light of the current confrontation, this does not necessarily mean its rapid disappearance or the fall of the political options it adopts, because, firstly, it is still the most important economic and social regulator of reality in the West Bank, as the daily life of about 170,000 employees is linked to its agencies and institutions. They support about a million Palestinians, in addition to its security presence, and the fact that it is still an international and regional demand.

The war on Gaza will stop at some point, and a struggle over paths will begin, the most important of which is stability or tranquility, around which the various forces will try to reconfigure the West Bank, but what is certain is that determining the features of what will happen there is linked to the results of the war on Gaza.

Expectations and scenarios

The current escalation of resistance action in the West Bank is linked, in one way or another, to the aggression against the Gaza Strip, and with the escalation of the war and the expansion of the occupation process in Rafah, the resistance is escalating, with the expectation that things in the West Bank will move towards a gradual but slow calm once a calm is reached in the Gaza Strip.

While in the medium and long term, it is likely that the West Bank will be on the verge of another escalation in light of the shift in Israeli society towards the right and extremism.

It seems that this war implanted in certain circles among the settlers and their leadership the idea that “we are living in a new reality that must be exploited to the maximum extent.” Some of them even believe that what happened in the Gaza envelope settlements is a punishment for not continuing settlement, and that it is possible to act independently without knowledge. The permission of the official authorities and the imposition of facts on the ground to impose a new level of settlement control.

As for the confrontations turning into a massive intifada in the West Bank in the next stage, it remains a weak possibility, even if the war intensifies or lasts longer, due to Israeli persecution and the exhaustion that has befallen the Palestinian community there.

In conclusion, the West Bank today is experiencing a comprehensive war of attrition by Israel, which also realizes that the West Bank represents its soft side. Therefore, the Zionist settlement project may consider the West Bank to be the real battlefield for it, and according to this logic, it seeks to uproot every attempt or model of resistance. It may appear there.

Hence, the future of the West Bank and its resistance seems to be largely related to the outcome of the aggression against Gaza, and the nature of the transformations that will come in the post-war phase. If Israel succeeds in achieving the goals of its war, the West Bank will most likely go into a state of calm, submission, or acceptance of the fait accompli. However, if the results of the war were different, this equation that Israel sought to establish might be broken.