Ganz said that Katz assured illegal Israeli Jewish settlers that “we have to behave exactly like Gaza” in the West Bank.
An Israeli settler leader has reportedly said that Defense Minister Israel Katz had assured illegal Jewish settlers that “we have to behave exactly like Gaza” in the West Bank.
According to a Washington Post report on Thursday, Israel Ganz, the chairperson of an umbrella organization of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, said he “had been pressuring Netanyahu and Smotrich for more than a year to apply the same tactics that the IDF has used in Gaza to the West Bank.”
Days after the Gaza ceasefire took hold, the Israeli military launched its largest offensive in years in the occupied West Bank, displacing tens of thousands. https://t.co/EfFYBkVE9c
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 6, 2025
Last week, Katz announced that Israel’s military offensive launched in the West Bank on January 21, may be ongoing with the army reportedly expected to remain in the refugee camps for up to a year.
‘Evacuate the Population’
Ganz said that Katz assured illegal Israeli Jewish settlers that “we have to behave exactly like Gaza” in the West Bank, the paper reported.
“We have to evacuate the population, clean the area, destroy the terror infrastructure, like tunnels, and then, anyone who wants to come back can come back,” Ganz added, according to the report.
Jenin under siege for 45 days.
Israeli forces continue their aggression on the city and its camp, leaving 30 killed, dozens injured and arrested, along with widespread destruction. pic.twitter.com/dLGwDGddMW
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) March 6, 2025
At least 65 Palestinians have been killed and dozens injured, as well as thousands displaced since the army’s offensive began.
The paper cited Israeli officials as claiming that the campaign – the largest in a decade – was needed to quell a growing “militant presence” in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus. The officials pointed to an increase in shootings, stabbings and a suspected bomb attack on empty buses outside Tel Aviv in February “as evidence of a terrorist threat,” the report added.
Scale and Intensity
Analysts, however, say the scale and intensity of the military operation were “vastly out of proportion to the actual threat.”
“It’s a mix between military needs, real intelligence and the great political motivations of the settlers,” Ilan Paz, a retired Israeli general and a former head of the Civil Administration in the West Bank, the Israeli governing body that operates in that Palestinian territory, was quoted as saying.
“The question is not whether we have reason to attack terror activity in the West Bank. The question is how,” Paz added.
He said refugee camps were being “emptied of Palestinians. We see military operations led by armored bulldozers. We see the Israeli government [undermining] the Palestinian Authority.”
“That is because of Netanyahu’s political issues, and the result we will see will be very similar to Gaza,” Paz stated.
‘Same Fate as Gaza’
The report also cites far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as saying that he had voted for the Gaza ceasefire “on the condition that West Bank operations be added to Israel’s war objectives.”
Last month, Smotrich warned Palestinians in the West Bank that “their fate will be the same as the fate of Gaza.”
He reportedly said that Tulkarm, Jenin and other West Bank cities would look like destroyed towns and refugee camps in Gaza.
“They too will be uninhabitable ruins. Their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries,” Smotrich stated.
According to UNRWA, around 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank. Scores of homes have been destroyed along with infrastructure, resulting in electricity and water being cut off in certain areas.
Netanyahu Visits Tulkarm
For the first time in decades, Israeli tanks were deployed to Jenin, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Tulkarm, an area exclusively administered by the Palestinian Authority, the report noted. No Israeli prime minister has visited the city before.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raided a civilian Palestinian house in Tulkarm, in the occupied West Bank, which was turned into a military base after the family was forcibly expelled. pic.twitter.com/zl6YH1bmzk
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) February 21, 2025
Former Israeli ambassador to the US, Itamar Rabinovich, told the Washington Post that Netanyahu “wanted to send a strong message to the radical right wing, and if by chance the PA is slighted or offended, well, too bad.”
Rabinovich pointed out that the army’s operation “should be viewed in light of Israeli settlers erecting several dozen new outposts in the West Bank in recent months,” the report added.
“They’re not directly tied, but they all point in the same direction,” the former ambassador stated.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
A terrorist asking terrorists to behave like terrorists.
Has anyone else noticed that the settlers look an awful lot like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban? Maybe they’re part of a larger plot. Are they even Jewish? And why are they ” untouchable ” ?
Most Zionists use religion only for control. They do not really practice it. The only passage Netanyahu read from the OT bible on TV in English was where god killed all men, women, children and animals in the area to make room for his “chosen people”.
Okay then, South Africa can add the West Bank to the Genocide case against Israel at the ICJ-CIJ. It was bound to happen anyway.