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Israeli settlers escalate attacks on West Bank Palestinians [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-23
With a cease fire in Gaza, Israel escalated offensive actions in the West Bank.
The offensive, which started in Jenin and expanded to the rest of the northern West Bank, including Tulkarem, Tubas, and their surrounding areas, is the largest Israeli offensive on Palestinian cities in the West Bank since the Second Intifada — over 22 years ago. Israel launched it immediately after the ceasefire deal in Gaza entered into force amidst calls from Israeli far-right politicians and media outlets to “transfer the war to the West Bank.”
After killing over 48,000 Gazans, and destroying all of their homes, Israel is now displacing West Bank Palestinians en masse.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from those areas, according to the United Nations and Israel's defense minister — the largest displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank in decades.
Tanks rolled into Jenin, where Israel is making it as unlivable as Gaza.
“It’s just like Gaza — none of the houses in the camp are livable anymore. But we won’t go anywhere. We’re ready to live in tents if necessary. We’ve done it before.”
Israeli settlers are escalating invasions and taking of Palestinian West Bank villages.
The remainder of this diary is taken from first hand accounts from Veterans for Peace and their host witnesses in and around West Bank villages.
Settlers use sheep grazing and tree planting in religious festivities to encroach on Palestinian villages, all with IDF backing.
In February, 2025, another village was targeted in a "tree planting" ceremony. The ground was prepared last week and this morning we watched as the settlers from Carmel, the adjacent settlement, paraded through the village with religious trappings, children, tools and weapons to celebrate their privilege. There were speeches and prayers and clapping as they "christened" the acquisition of stolen land.
Land was stolen from the village of Umm Alkhair whose residents, careful not to anger the thieves, observed at a safe distance the intrusion of their community. They watched as a flag of the Jewish people, a construct rarely questioned, was hoisted on a pole with a surveillance camera. Knowing they have no recourse, Palestinians watched the public demonstration of contempt for their humanity as the settlers piled debris from their new acquisition inside the village community center
Then bulldozers are brought in to destroy Palestinian homes and displace residents.
Palestinian owned vehicles are also destroyed.
Vehicle destroyed in Susiya, mid-February, 2025
Palestinians are regularly killed in apparent attempts to eliminate them as a viable population in Israel.
The child Ayman Nassar Al-Haimouni (13 years old) was martyred by the occupation forces’ bullets in the Jabal Jawhar area, south of the city of Hebron
The violence is ongoing and escalating. According to West Bank witnesses, on February 22, in Jaba, just outside Ramallah, settlers/army burned a house and a car while shooting at the residents. No news yet on casualties. In Masafer Yatta settlers slung stones at Palestinian cars on the road.
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