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20-year-old Palestinian administrative detainee Ahmad Tazaaz’a, from Jenin, died, Sunday, in the Israeli prison of Megiddo.
His family says he had no prior health issues prior to his detention nine months ago.
His death brings the death toll among detainees to 76 since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, during which extreme violence, including torture and starvation, has been widely used against the detainees.
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The Israeli army on Tuesday killed a Palestinian young man in Jenin amid the ongoing offensive in the northern occupied West Bank that has been taking place since Jan. 21.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that the Israeli army handed over to its medical teams “a martyr in his twenties in the Eastern neighborhood of Jenin.”
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that a large number of Israeli forces, escorted by bulldozers, broke into the eastern neighborhood of Jenin at dawn on Tuesday.
Armed clashes between the Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters, along with sounds of explosions, were reported in the area, the witnesses also said.
They added that the Israeli bulldozers embarked on destroying infrastructure in the neighborhood, including razing of roads.
The Israeli army has been conducting operations in the northern West Bank since Jan. 21, killing at least 65 people and displacing thousands.
Palestinian authorities have warned that the continued military offensive is part of a broader plan by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to annex the West Bank and declare sovereignty over it, which could officially mark the end of the two-state solution.
The raids were the latest in the military escalation in the West Bank, where at least 928 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught against the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The International Court of Justice declared in July last year that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories is “unlawful,” demanding the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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Weeks of deadly Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank have turned Palestinian communities into “battlefields” and left 40,000 people homeless, UN humanitarians warned on Wednesday.
The violence has seen exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants – and the use of bulldozers in refugee camps for the first time in 20 years which have destroyed public services, including vital electricity and water networks.
Israel’s defence minister said on Sunday forces could remain in the camps for the “coming year”.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN’s Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, said that “fear, uncertainty, and grief once again prevail. Affected camps lie in ruins…Destruction of public infrastructure, bulldozing roads and access restrictions are common place.”
More than 50 people including children have been killed since Israeli military raids started five weeks ago, the UN agency said, warning that the West Bank “is becoming a battlefield” where ordinary Palestinians are the first and worst to suffer.
Meanwhile, UN aid coordinating office, OCHA, also condemned the “lethal, war-like tactics” being employed by the Israeli military against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
OCHA confirmed further civilian casualties and mass displacement after a two-day Israeli military raid in the northern town of Qabatiya in Jenin governorate that ended on Monday.
Palestinians were detained in the operation, OCHA noted, before reiterating deep concerns about the use of excessive force against civilians and the additional humanitarian needs among people left homeless.
UN partners on the ground are doing their utmost to help people uprooted by the violence despite growing “physical and administrative” challenges, OCHA said.
According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), it reached 190,000 people in January with cash assistance and has provided one-off cash assistance to more than 5,000 displaced people from the Jenin refugee camp.
In neighbouring Gaza, UN and its humanitarian partners have continued to scale up food security and livelihood support, while six children reportedly died from the cold.
Needs remain enormous amid desperate humanitarian conditions caused by 15 months of constant Israeli bombardment sparked by Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel that left 1,200 dead and some 250 people captured as hostages.
Citing the Gazan health authorities, OCHA said that six children from the Gaza Strip have died in recent days because to the severe cold, bringing to 15 the total number of youngsters killed by the winter conditions.
Meanwhile, more than 800 trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Tuesday alone, OCHA said. Since the start of the ceasefire on 19 January, WFP has brought more than 30,000 tonnes of food into Gaza. More than 60 kitchens supported by the UN agency across the Strip have handed out nearly 10 million meals, including in North Gaza and Rafah in the south.
The biggest aid provider in Gaza, UNRWA, has reached nearly 1.3 million people with flour and reached about two million people with food parcels since the start of the ceasefire.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also reported that it has delivered animal feed to northern Gaza for the first time since the escalation of hostilities.
The aid delivery last week has helped 146 families with livestock in Gaza City alongside another 980 in Deir al Balah.
Between the start of the ceasefire and 21 February, FAO distributed more than 570 metric tonnes of animal feed across the Gaza Strip to some 2,300 families with livestock.
OCHA noted in addition that aid partners working in education have identified additional schools in Rafah, Khan Younis and Deir al Balah that were used as shelters for displaced people. “These schools will be assessed and repaired to prepare for their reopening,” it said.
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The Israeli Defence Minister has ordered the army to take control of three Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank and block residents’ return. Euro-Med Monitor strongly condemns the move, which reveals a serious escalation of Israel’s apartheid and forced displacement practices against the Palestinian people, beginning with the 1948 Nakba.
The Israeli Defence Minister has publicly confirmed the expulsion of approximately 40,000 Palestinian refugees from the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps in the northern West Bank, citing the need for combat in order to dismantle “terrorist infrastructure” in these areas. What is actually occurring on the ground, however, is the mass displacement of Palestinians from their places of refuge, along with the destruction of their homes, livelihoods, and civilian infrastructure, including water, electricity, and roads. Israel clearly aims to create a new reality that will prevent their short- and long-term return.
The Israeli army’s actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, as they are conducting military operations in ways that flagrantly violate international law, which mandates the protection of civilians and civilian objects and prohibits their targeting or subjection to indiscriminate or excessive attacks. Such repeated and large-scale violations demonstrate Israel’s blatant disregard for its international legal obligations and pose a serious threat to the civilian population in the West Bank. Immediate international intervention is needed to ensure those responsible for these crimes are held accountable as swiftly as possible.
The Israeli army’s deployment of tanks, its establishment of military sites within refugee camps, and its prevention of residents’ right to return reflect a deliberate effort to impose a military fait accompli
Moreover, the Israeli army’s deployment of tanks, its establishment of military sites within these refugee camps, and its prevention of residents’ right to return reflect a deliberate effort to impose a military fait accompli. These actions violate international law and effectively undermine the agreements under which the Palestinian National Authority was formed.
Euro-Med Monitor’s field team observed the movement of approximately three Israeli tanks late on Saturday evening. The tanks were travelling from Muqeible, near Israel’s Jalamah military checkpoint in Jenin, and positioning themselves near Jenin’s refugee camp, marking the first occurrence of its kind since 2002.
Israel’s deployment of tanks in densely populated residential areas within a purely civilian environment occurred 33 days after its army launched the large-scale “Operation Iron Wall” in Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp, which it later expanded to include Tulkarm and Tubas, leading to full Israeli control over the northern West Bank camps and the destruction of hundreds of homes. This indicates that the deployment of these heavy vehicles serves no security or military purpose, but is instead part of an Israeli attempt to establish military control over the region.
The Israeli army is systematically destroying the aforementioned areas despite there being no military necessity to do so, using bulldozers to pave new roads over the ruins of destroyed homes. Additionally, the army has been instructed to establish military sites within the camps in an apparent aim to alter the geographical reality of these areas and diminish the symbolic significance of the camps, which represent the Palestinian refugee cause following the displacement of Palestinians from their cities and villages in 1948. The presence of the Israeli army in these camps has destroyed any means of livelihood, leaving thousands of residents displaced, living either in temporary shelters or with relatives.
Euro-Med Monitor warns that Israel may attempt to impose a new fait accompli in all areas under Palestinian National Authority sovereignty, effectively breaking the agreements signed with it and nullifying its role in these areas. This could be a step towards annexing the West Bank and imposing Israeli sovereignty by force, which would be in line with the directives of right-wing Israeli ministers who have declared 2025 to be the year for sovereignty over the region.
Official Israeli statements suggest that the military assault will not be confined to the refugee camps in the northern West Bank, but will spread to other areas in both the northern and southern West Bank, putting hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk of death, injury, arrest, displacement, or loss of property.
Israel’s impunity over the past decades was made possible due to international inaction—or complicity—in the face of its crimes of aggression, apartheid, forced displacement, and land seizure over 77 years, as well as the global silence regarding the 15-month genocide in Gaza, has emboldened Israel to intensify and expand its aggression against the Palestinians and the territory it occupies. The ongoing lack of any deterrence or legal consequences increases the likelihood of more crimes being committed by Israel, which poses a serious threat not only to the rights of the Palestinian people but to the stability of the entire international system.
The recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory affirms the illegality of Israel’s presence in these areas. The Court confirmed that Israel must end its illegal presence as soon as possible, compensate those affected for their damages, and fulfill its other obligations toward the Palestinian people. The international community must exert effective pressure on Israel to adhere to international law, cease its military operations in the northern West Bank, withdraw from illegally occupied areas, allow residents to return, and halt its decades-long policy of destruction and displacement.
Euro-Med Monitor urges the international community to guarantee the rights of the Palestinian people to live in freedom and dignity; support their right to self-determination under international law; work to end the illegal Israeli occupation and settler colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; dismantle the system of apartheid and isolation imposed on Palestinians; lift the unlawful blockade on the Gaza Strip; ensure accountability for Israeli perpetrators; and guarantee the right of Palestinian victims to redress and justice.
