The British Middle East Eye website confirmed that Israeli forces have carried out almost daily raids on towns and cities across the West Bank since the start of the war on the Gaza Strip last October, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 582 Palestinians and the arrest of more than 10,000 others, amid an increase in arrests, evictions, home demolitions, settler violence and settlement expansion.
The website explained – in a report by Catherine Hirst – that experts confirm that the number of raids has “more than tripled” since Israel launched its war on Gaza, and that most of these raids target refugee camps that Israel considers strongholds for militants, such as Jenin and Nour Shams, which have been subjected to repeated raids.
The website provided examples of this Israeli military escalation, including the siege of the Nour Shams camp, the demolition of its infrastructure, and the killing of 7 Palestinians on October 19, followed by a deadly raid on the city of Jenin and its refugee camp, which resulted in the killing of at least 11 people on the 29th of the same month.
Repeated targeting
Just over a week later, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians during a 15-hour raid in Tulkarm, an assault that included bombing a house with a drone, dropping tear gas on a hospital, preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded, and causing widespread destruction to roads and businesses.
In late December, Israeli forces launched a days-long assault on cities across the West Bank, including Hebron, Halhul, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, al-Bireh, Jericho and Ramallah, and less than a month later, Israeli forces disguised as paramedics and patients raided a hospital in Jenin, killing three people.
Israeli forces launched another attack last April, which lasted for days, on the Jenin refugee camp, killing 14 Palestinians and wounding dozens, according to the site. This was followed by another large-scale raid on the camp last June, during which Israeli forces killed 5 Palestinians, including a child.
According to the site’s statistics, 582 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since October 7, but the Palestinian Ministry of Health estimates the number at 652, while the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that 120 Palestinians were killed as a result of settler attacks, which are higher than the 199 Palestinians killed in the first nine months of 2023.
Thousands arrested
In the West Bank, the prisoners’ rights organization Addameer reported that 9,100 prisoners were added to the 5,200 who were in Israeli prisons before October 7, 2023.
According to Addameer, the nature of Palestinian detention has become more violent since the beginning of the war, with reports that Israeli forces often raid and vandalize detainees’ homes, assault them and threaten their families, before they face squalid conditions in Israeli prisons, with multiple reports of systematic torture and sexual assault of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Addameer reported that 10 prisoners from the West Bank died in detention before the end of March this year.
Israel has used its war on Gaza as cover for a dangerous escalation in land grabs in the occupied West Bank, the site says, with Peace Now reporting that Israel has seized 23.7 square kilometers of Palestinian land this year, more than the total land seized over the past 20 years.
Housing demolitions have also increased, with Israeli authorities punitively demolishing or sealing 38 buildings since October, displacing 170 people.
Unprecedented settlement pace
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli forces and settlers destroyed 1,429 structures and displaced 3,244 Palestinians, paving the way for massive settlement expansion, with 44 outposts established in 2023 and 2024, according to Peace Now.
In late June, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved the establishment of five new Israeli settlement outposts.
Settlement expansion has been accompanied by a sharp rise in settler attacks, which have helped displace Palestinian herding communities in the southern Hebron hills, the Jordan Valley and East Jerusalem, and have contributed to the strengthening of outposts. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs counted some 1,250 Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians, resulting in the deaths of 120 people between October 7 and August 12 of this year.
The West Bank has seen a rise in settler violence for several years, with far-right groups armed by successive Israeli governments, but these attacks have intensified and received increasingly explicit government support since last October.
These attacks are increasingly under official military supervision, Middle East Eye explains.