West Bank Journalists Need Protection From Israeli Violence

The Amman-based Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists condemns the ongoing violations committed by the Israeli occupation forces against journalists in the occupied West Bank.

“What is happening in the Palestinian territories in terms of persecution and systematic violations against journalists is horrific and dangerous,” the CDFJ stated last Thursday.

“The scenes shown by television networks showing the occupation bulldozers raiding journalists and firing live bullets directly at them, despite them wearing press badges and clothing that identify them,” are not acceptable.

“The West Bank has become like the Gaza Strip, with no safe place for journalists to practice their profession and carry out their work,” the CDFJ added.

The independent organization noted “the Israeli occupation targeted with live bullets seven journalists, directly and deliberately, riding in three press vehicles, clearly wearing press protection, in an area where there was no “field activities” on their way to the town of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin.”

The CDFJ noted also the occupation forces also blew up the broadcast room of Radio Nas in Jenin.

The Amman-based organization called for the monitoring and documenting violations against journalists in the cities of the West Bank, calling on the United Nations, international human rights organizations, and the media to “take urgent action to protect them from deliberate Israeli targeting.”

The Israeli occupation forces began its aggression on the northerns part of the West Bank, since 28 August, and which resulted in the killing of 34 Palestinians, including 19 in the city of Jenin, eight in Tulkarm, four in Tubas, and three n Hebron, bringing the death toll in the West Bank since 7 October, 2023 to 685.

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Military Eye: Israel, West Bank and Karamah’s Deadly Operation

Military and strategic expert Dr. Nidal Abu Zeid said the Karamah Crossing operation is casting its shadow over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as the occupation army from now may step up its security measures.

He pointing out to the repeated statements and warnings issued by the occupation army to its so-called home front point to the fact.

Abu Zeid added to the Jordan24 news website that the West Bank may witness martyrdom operations in the coming period in response to the increase security violations committed by the Israeli occupation.

Abu Zeid pointed out that the current calm and the decrease in the intensity of operations suggest that the occupation army is presently involved in intelligence gatherings to search for what he termed as “high-value targets.”

Regarding to what is happening in the West Bank, Abu Zeid pointed out that the Israeli occupation have already headed to the Balata camp in Nablus. He pointed out this indicates that occupation forces maybe now  heading towards the center of the West Bank, then towards the southern camps and finally target Hebron.

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Jenin: ‘We Will Only Raise The Palestinian Flag Here’

The Israeli occupation forces have continued their onslaught on Jenin and its camp for the eighth consecutive day.

The onslaught resulted in the killing of 19 people, the injury and arrest of dozens with widespread destruction of citizens’ properties and infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, according to Wafa.

On Tuesday, 16-year-od Lujain Abdul Raouf was killed, and four journalists injured, including WAFA photojournalists Muhammad Mansour and Ayman Noubani, in an Israeli army siege of a house in the village of Kafr Dan, west of Jenin.

The occupation forces also raided several houses in the Al-Hadaf neighborhood on the outskirts of Jenin camp, tampered with their contents and destroyed their furniture.

The occupation forces stormed the Al-Zahraa neighborhood in the city and bulldozed the infrastructure and streets, while water continues to be cut off from most of the city’s neighborhoods and the camp.

Destroying streets

The occupation forces continue to destroy the center of Jenin city, as the occupation bulldozers razed Cinema Street and large parts of Hospitals Street to the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital, and destroyed shops in the Cinema Roundabout area and re-razed the Post Street.

The occupation bulldozers attacked a group of journalists while they were covering the destruction of the Cinema Roundabout and the surrounding shops, and opened fire directly at them, which resulted in their injury.

In Al-Jabariyat neighborhood, the occupation forces stormed the house of the detainee Zakaria Al-Zubaidi and detained his brother Yahya after vandalizing and destroying the contents of the house.

The occupation forces also continued their large-scale detention campaigns of young men in the Jenin camp and the villages of Al-Silah Al-Harithiya, Al-Yamoun and Kafr Dan west of Jenin.

They stormed the town of Qabatiya fired at citizens’ houses, Tuesday night, and resulted in the shooting of a young man in the chest while he was inside his home.

The Israeli army also detained an ambulance crew while transporting an emergency medical case to the Khalil Suleiman Governmental Hospital in Jenin and assaulted a number of them.

The Israeli occupation forces stormed the village of Muthalath Al-Shuhada, south of Jenin, deployed snipers on the roofs of several houses, raided six houses, detained a number of citizens before withdrawing from the town according to the Palestinian news agency.

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Palestinians: Down But By No Means Beaten!

Palestinian analysts confirm the military operation launched by the Israeli occupation on the camps in the northern occupied West Bank – “Summer Camps” – aim to eradicate the resistance through excess force and the destruction of their popular base and is considered more dangerous than the “Defensive Shield” operation it carried out in the occupied West Bank in 2002.

Palestinian political analyst Ismat Mansour stressed the most dangerous thing about the last Israeli military operation emanates from what Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said about evacuating the residents of the camps to humanitarian places to carry out cleansing operations,” a sentence also made by the army spokesman when the operation was launched.

“The goal of these military operations are clear, and represented in destroying the Palestinian infrastructure and turning the camps into uninhabitable places with creeping and gradual ethnic cleansing,” Mansour told Quds Press.

Mansour attributed these plans to the declared programs of the Israeli occupation government and “its structure, ideology, and agenda – highlighted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to resolve the conflict,” in reference to the aim to annex the West Bank to the occupation state.

Therefore Mansour called for “the necessity of working to find a unified collective plan that mobilizes all [Palestinian] energies to confront this criminal mentality.”

Expert Azzam Abu Al-Adas considers the current Israeli military operation in the West Bank is far “more dangerous than that of the Operation Defensive Shield carried by the Jewish army in 2002.”

He pointed out “when Operation Defensive Shield was executed, the Palestinian factions were present in the West Bank and existed in terms of infrastructure, finance, and military, and had the ability to rebuild their forces and compensate for losses. Now, the factions have been dismantled financially, militarily, and socially.”

“Operation Defensive Shield was carried out at a time when the number of settlers in the West Bank was barely 70,000, and now it is 800,000, which means that eliminating the resistance will increase the encroachment of the army and settlers,” according to his thinking.

Abu Al-Adas pointed out head of the Israeli government of occupation Benjamin Netanyahu, “is in dire need of a victory, and since he failed to achieve it in Gaza, he will claim this such an image in the West Bank raise his popularity, especially among the settlers and will increase his chances in the upcoming elections, which he intends to run for.”

“In 2002, the occupation was still living under the shock of the then prime minister Ariel Sharon who entered Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, and Al-Aqsa Mosque was out of the game, but now if Israel succeeds in eliminating the resistance act it means the building of the synagogue which Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir talked about and displacing the people of Jerusalem” becomes more real.

The occupation forces began a large-scale military operation targeting resistance fighters in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas in the northern West Bank at dawn Wednesday, where large Israeli forces invaded all areas, cities and camps in the northern West Bank from several axes, calling it operation “Summer Camps”.

The Israeli media reported the military operation is the largest since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and carried out with the Israeli warplanes, army, Israeli Internal Security Service (Shabak) and other undercover forces with the use of helicopters and fighter jets extensively.

Operation Defensive Shield was a military operation carried out by Israel to occupy and attack areas of the Palestinian Authority, after the Palestinian soldier Abdul Basit Odeh carried out the Park Hotel operation, which is considered one of the largest suicide operations in the history of the Palestinian resistance.

For Israel the main goal of the operation was to eliminate the second Palestinian Intifada which began in 2000 after Sharon, as prime minister, stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“Operation Defensive Shield” was launched on 29 March, 2002 and ended on 10 May.

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Amnesty Decries Israel Attacks on West Bank Cities

Responding to the launch of a major Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank targeting several Palestinian cities and towns including Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus and Tubas, and deploying hundreds of soldiers to carry out raids supported by fighter jets, drones and bulldozers Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. Erika Guevara Rosas said:

“Israel’s launch of a major coordinated military assault on cities and towns across the occupied West Bank follows an escalation in unlawful killings by Israeli forces in recent months and will put more Palestinians at risk. Since October, last year, there has been a horrifying spike in lethal force by Israeli forces and violent state-back settler attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with Israeli forces and settlers killing at least 622 Palestinians, including at least 142 children.

“Ongoing military operations on this scale will undoubtedly lead to an escalation in deadly violence, resulting in further loss of Palestinian lives. It is likely that these operations will result in an increase in forced displacement, destruction of critical infrastructure and measures of collective punishment, which have been key pillars of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians and of its unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Amid alarming reports that Israeli forces have encircled and blocked off access to hospitals, Amnesty International urges the Israeli authorities to take action to safeguard health facilities and personnel. Furthermore, they must guarantee that individuals in need of medical attention are able to access the care they require. As the occupying power, Israel has a clear obligation to protect Palestinians, their homes and the infrastructure throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Amnesty International previously documented how Israeli forces unleashed a brutal wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank following the deadly 7 October attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in southern Israel. This research highlighted how Israeli forces carried out unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, and denying medical assistance to those injured.

Amnesty International has also documented the shocking increase in state-backed settler violence against Palestinians. These patterns, continue unabated as Israeli forces have also escalated their use of arrests, including arbitrary detention, to crush any form of Palestinian dissent.

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