By Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo

What is the context behind the operation launched by the Israeli army and targeting northern West Bank cities and refugee camps?

At precisely 01:30 am on Wednesday, the Israeli army launched what has been described as the largest military operation since the Israeli invasion of major Palestinian cities in the West Bank in 2002. 

The Israeli onslaught has targeted northern West Bank cities, but mostly refugee camps.

The Israeli operation has, thus far, focused largely on the refugee camps surrounding Jenin and Tulkarm.

As of Thursday evening, 17 Palestinians were killed and scores more wounded. 

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The number is likely to grow for two reasons: one, Israel continues to amass more soldiers and raid more Palestinian areas; and two, Israel has besieged the major hospitals in the area, preventing the dead and the wounded from being transported to medical centers. 

What is the context behind the story?

In March 2023, the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) voted to cancel the 2005 so-called disengagement plan, which allowed Israel to redeploy its forces out of central Gaza and to dismantle three settlements in the northern West Bank.

The disengagement plan did not change the status of Gaza, as an occupied territory under international law nor did it effectively change the relationship between Israel and any parts of the West Bank. 

The war on Gaza, however, has emboldened voices within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, which has demanded the return to military occupation of Gaza and to the acceleration of illegal settlement construction in all parts of the West Bank, including the northern region. 

The Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank is believed to be part of the Israeli government’s efforts to entrench its occupation and to ethnically cleanse most of the Palestinian population in that area, as a necessary prelude to expanding existing settlements or building new ones. 

What does this mean for the Palestinian Authority?

The Oslo Accords divided the West Bank into three regions – Area A, B, and C.

Area A was meant to be an autonomous Palestinian area, governed by the Palestinian Authority, Area B was designated as a region to be governed by both the Israeli army and the PA, while Area C – 60 percent of the size of the West Bank – remained under total Israeli so-called security control. 

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Israel no longer recognizes these divisions. In fact, in 2002, Israel carried out major, and bloody, military operations that targeted Palestinians in all West Bank regions, including Area A. 

Since October 7, Israel has operated in all of these areas nonstop, rendering the ‘authority’ of the Palestinian Authority completely useless.

The PA, however, continued to cooperate with Israel in terms of the so-called security coordination, which effectively makes Palestinian security forces direct participants in the ongoing Israeli violent campaign against Palestinian resistance. 

Will Israel succeed in its objectives?

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have refused to accept that defeating Gaza militarily is not an option. 

Instead of listening to their own military’s recommendations of ending the war through a negotiated ceasefire, Israel’s political leaders have been keen on fanning the flames of war elsewhere. 

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It is obvious that Israel cannot militarily defeat the Lebanese group Hezbollah and most certainly, would not be able to take on Iran without American military support. But since the prospects of a regional war – which Netanyahu has been pushing for – remain dim, Israel has decided to go after what it perceives to be the Palestinian resistance soft belly, the West Bank. 

Resistance in the West Bank, though determined, is largely isolated due to the combined pressures imposed by the Israeli army, violent Jewish settlers and the PA.

However, by carrying out deadly military campaigns against the Resistance, Israel risks the igniting of a Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, which, if launched, could destabilize the entirety of the West Bank. 

If that is to take place, the Israeli military will not be able to continue with its war on Gaza with the same degree of intensity, as it would be forced to send tens of thousands of soldiers to quell the Intifada of the West Bank.

Will the international community succeed to pressure Israel to end its military escalation in the West Bank?

Unlikely. The international community has so far failed to even pressure Israel to provide food to starving Palestinians in Gaza. 

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In fact, Israel feels emboldened by the US and other Western countries’ ability to coerce the international community into a position where they either support Israel or remain ineffectual. 

That said, if arrest warrants are produced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli war criminals, and if the warrants are expanded to include far-right extremist ministers, such an action could in fact put pressure on those who support Israel militarily to withhold their support. 

What is likely to happen next?

At the beginning of the Gaza war, Netanyahu had vowed to fully destroy the Resistance in Gaza, among other lofty promises. He failed. 

But instead of climbing down the tree, Netanyahu tried to jump from one tree to the other, one day promising to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, the other day to defeat Iran and so forth. 

He will likely fail in the West Bank because his actions in the West Bank cannot be viewed separately from the other variables, or war fronts elsewhere. 

To ensure his failure, however, Palestinians will have to resolve their long unsolved dichotomy of operating under a ‘leadership’ that openly cooperates with the Israeli occupation, which continues to crush Palestinians with complete impunity. 

(The Palestine Chronicle)