Israeli snipers position themselves on rooftops as troops storm Ramallah and el-Bireh.
The Israeli army has launched a prolonged raid on Ramallah and el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank as it continues to relentlessly pound Gaza, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reports that at least 58 Palestinians have been wounded.
Those injured on Tuesday included a child hit by live fire. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the 13-year-old underwent surgery after being wounded in the abdomen.
Witnesses said Israeli forces stormed a currency exchange shop in an area between Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority’s presidential compound al-Muqata’a is based, and el-Bireh, detaining at least three Palestinians while Israeli snipers positioned themselves on rooftops and soldiers stormed the central vegetable market area.
The PRCS said eight people were hit with live bullets, 14 were struck with rubber-coated steel bullets – including a 71-year-old man – and five were wounded by shrapnel.
Another 31 Palestinians suffered tear gas inhalation, including two pregnant women.
A rescue team was prevented from reaching the wounded in the besieged areas, the PRCS said.
“This is part of the daily life of Palestinians,” Abu Eid told media from Ramallah, noting that Israel is conducting a show of force to remind residents “who is actually ruling here”.
media’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said of the ongoing Israeli army assault and settler violence in the occupied West Bank: “Palestinians are rendered defenceless in the face of all of these threats: They’re forcibly displaced from their homes. They are constantly attacked by settler violence, and these settlers are emboldened by the Israeli government.”
“There have been murders, there’s been arson, there have been olive trees that have been uprooted, livestock that have been killed, and people who have been injured in the process of trying to protect their land from these illegal Israeli settlers. Then you have the Israeli army, which emboldens these settlers [and] protects these settlers,” she added
Salhut noted that earlier this year, “one of the largest Israeli military incursions into the northern part of the occupied West Bank is actually still ongoing; refugee camps were completely destroyed, and Palestinians, intimidated by the Israeli military, were forced to leave with nowhere to go.”
War on ‘all Palestinian people’
Adel Abdel Ghafar, senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said Israel’s latest military operation in Ramallah showed its war is not just with Hamas or Gaza but with “all the Palestinian people”.
He added that Israel was able to carry out its operations “with impunity across the West Bank” because the Palestinian Authority is unable to respond effectively.
The West Bank has seen a surge in Israeli military and settler violence since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes.
Ramallah recorded the highest number of attacks, 585, followed by 479 in Nablus in the northern West Bank.
At least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers across the region since October 2023, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Paris-based political journalist Faten Elwan said the raid in Ramallah appeared to be more of a show of force over the West Bank rather than a targeted military operation.
“Israel is sending a clear message that Oslo [Accords] is dead, that the Palestinian Authority is dead and that there is no power on the ground but the Israeli forces and the settlers that now act as a shadow government for the vision of the Israeli army,” she told media.
The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995, were supposed to bring about Palestinian self-determination in the form of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This would mean that Israel – which was formed on the land of historic Palestine in 1948 in an event Palestinians know as the Nakba, or Catastrophe – would accept Palestinian claims to national sovereignty. The claims, however, would be limited to a fraction of historic Palestine, with the rest remaining under Israel’s control.
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