By Robert Inlakesh

As the Gaza ceasefire holds, Israel signals a shift in focus to the occupied West Bank, sparking fears of intensified military operations and settler violence.

On Tuesday, as the Gaza ceasefire negotiations neared completion, Israel launched deadly drone-strikes against a densely populated civilian area in the Jenin Refugee Camp, murdering 6 Palestinians. This act of aggression served as a signal for what may be to come.

Nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023. This means that the period since the Gaza Genocide began is the deadliest on record for Palestinians in the West Bank’s post-1967 history.

According to the database of Israel’s top rights group, B’Tselem, there were 736 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, over the same span of time since the war on Gaza began, during the deadliest period of the Second Intifada – between October 7, 2001 and January 16, 2003. 

Biden and Blinken’s Contradictory Statements Expose US Policy Failures in Gaza

In early January it was reported by Israel Hayom that senior officials in the Israeli military had repeatedly requested the introduction of tanks into the West Bank, but their requests were ultimately rejected with the reason being their use in Gaza and the northern front. 

Israel has claimed to have intercepted weapons transfers from Jordan that have included RPGs, which has led to speculation that such game-changing weapons exist in the hands of anti-occupation armed groups inside the territory.

While justifications are now being offered as to why the Israeli army must deploy more advanced and deadly military equipment to the West Bank, there also exists the threat that armed settler militias will launch a sustained war against Palestinian villages in order to ethnically cleanse them.

In addition to this, Israel has already long re-introduced airstrikes and their infamous “targeted assassinations” to the territory, something that had all but disappeared following the conclusion of the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Since the rise of localised Palestinian resistance factions in 2021, Israel has responded with brute force and long pushed for the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces to play a role in helping to violently put them down.

Despite the PA’s forces having killed and arrested Palestinian anti-occupation fighters, it had refrained from launching an all out assault, the likes of which was proposed by US security coordinator Michael Fenzel in early 2023. That was until December of last year, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas ordered a military operation to crush the Jenin Brigades inside the Jenin refugee camp. 

The Gaza Dilemma: Can PA Replace Hamas and the Popular Resistance?

The controversial “Fenzel Plan” was drawn up to ensure the PA used specialiZed units of their security, trained by the US in Jordan, would launch a campaign in the northern West Bank to dismantle the newly formed armed groups. Although the PA maintained that its offensive against the armed groups was not the implementation of the US plan, it immediately requested American weapons to aid them in their fight.

After murdering fighters and civilians, including children and a female journalist, shutting off water, electricity, imposing curfews and besieging the civilian population for 40 days, the Jenin Brigades announced that they had struck a deal with the PA in order to end the violence. That same day (January 14), the Israeli military decided to launch three drone strikes next to a home in the Jenin refugee camp, murdering 6 civilians and seriously injuring two others.

Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority security forces ended up losing more of their own fighters than the Jenin Brigades – almost all of them due to their own mishandling of weapons – demonstrating themselves to be a rather incompetent and ineffective fighting force. At least, this appears to be the way the Israeli government has interpreted their display of weakness in Jenin, proving to Tel Aviv and Washington that they are not capable of doing Israel’s job for it.

Despite using similar tactics to the Israeli military in Jenin refugee camp, such as illegally turning a hospital into a military barracks temporarily – according to UN officials – and imposing a blockade, curfews and arbitrarily shooting towards civilians, the PA security forces failed dramatically to sufficiently weaken the Jenin brigades by force. This came at a critical juncture, where the PA was trying to use their operation in Jenin to display their value in the West Bank to both the United States and Israel.

As Donald Trump takes office, the popular understanding amongst analysts is that the considerable campaign contribution – that was committed to him by Israel’s richest billionaire Miriam Adelson – has secured the incoming US President’s support for Israeli annexation in the West Bank. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to hold together his far-right coalition, he will likely pursue this goal sooner rather than later.

Although the Gaza genocide may now be coming to an end, the Israeli PM has repeatedly stated that he is pursuing a regional agenda in which “total victory” is the goal. Failure to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a ceasefire deal will not mean that the war ends, but only that the focus will shift to other fronts of a continuous conflict.

Weapon of Propaganda – Israeli ‘Mass Rape’ Allegations Continue to Fall Apart

While the Gaza Strip built a formidable web of armed groups from each Palestinian political faction, all of them working together to continually combat the Israeli invaders, the PA has destroyed the prospect of such a force rising in the West Bank. Therefore, while PA President Mahmoud Abbas has instructed his security forces and preventive security apparatus (intelligence network) to work with Israel in order to enforce his view that armed resistance is terrorism, the West Bank has been slowly conquered and dominated by illegal settlers.

Furthermore, the PA has robbed the West Bank of its ability to put up any solid resistance that could physically challenge settlement expansion and a brutal occupation. Instead, it has pushed the propaganda that armed struggle will only lead to defeat. 

However, if the Gaza ceasefire holds, despite Israel having committed one of the greatest crimes in human history over the past 15 months, there will be no settlements or Israeli checkpoints inside the Gaza Strip. 

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority will be powerless to prevent a de-jure annexation of West Bank territory and an expanded ethnic cleansing campaign. What could be in store for the West Bank may be horrifying.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.