The Palestinian Resistance in the West Bank seems to have managed to find its balance and overcome the shock created by the Israeli military violence of earlier.
What is taking place in the West Bank is not business as usual.
Almost immediately following the Israeli war on Gaza starting on October 7, the Israeli army escalated its raids and attacks on West Bank towns and refugee camps.
Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarm received the lion’s share of the Israeli violence. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 554 Palestinians, including 133 children, were killed and nearly 5,300 injured since October 7.
Most of the killings took place during raids, sieges and, at times even airstrikes targeting Palestinian homes.
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The Palestinian Resistance in the West Bank, however, seems to have managed to find its balance and overcome the shock created by the Israeli military violence of earlier.
Added to the sense of collective shock is that Israeli military attacks were almost always accompanied by settler attacks, and, in some cases outright pogroms.
One Soldier Killed
On Monday, the Tulkarm battalion of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, broadcast scenes of the explosion of an Israeli armored vehicle in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.
The ambush killed an occupation soldier, and wounded an officer.
The brigades’ video showed the evacuation of an injured soldier along with another dead person lying on the ground, as well as the attempts of the occupation to withdraw the rest of the targeted vehicle, the fortified Namer.
The moment Palestinian fighters targeted a Namer vehicle with an explosive device in the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm.
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The Tulkarm operation is not the only ‘complex operation’ carried out by Palestinian Resistance in the West Bank. Similar operations have been more common in recent days and weeks.
Last Thursday, the Jenin Brigades, also of the Al-Quds Brigades claimed responsibility for an ambush that targeted two Israeli military vehicles during a raid on the camp, killing an officer and wounding 16 Israeli soldiers.
A Unique Style
“The type of operations underway in the West Bank, especially in northern regions, indicate that the Resistance there has learned from the nature of Israeli tactics in the last nine months, and is adapting,” Palestinian analyst and editor of the Palestine Chronicle, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, said.
“This may also suggest that the Resistance, which faces two layers of control, the Israeli army and the Palestinian Authority, has developed a unique style,” he added.
“The style is effective in the damage it inflicts on the Israeli army, but it is also tailored to fit the West Bank’s different circumstances when compared to Gaza,” according to Baroud.
Major General Fayez al-Duwairi is one of several military analysts who believes that indeed a strategic shift in the behavior of the Resistance is underway in the West Bank.
“Recent operations in the West Bank indicate a strategic shift in the way the Resistance factions manage the battle and confrontation with the occupation,” he told Al-Jazeera.
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Al-Duwairi added that “this qualitative and strategic shift in the management of the battle will have its subsequent repercussions and various consequences in the coming days.”
In fact, these repercussions have already been felt in recent weeks as the Israeli army has fortified its military presence in the West Bank, and has lowered the number of raids on particular refugee camps fearing similar deadly ambushes.
Instead, the Israeli army has been restoring to shelling Palestinians using attack drones to avoid entering into population areas.
The latest example was on June 30, when Israeli forces assassinated Saeed Al-Jaber, commander of the Nour Shams camp battalion of the Al-Quds Brigades in the Tulkarm area in the West Bank, with a drone.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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