Jamal Juma‘a, head of the Stop the Wall campaign, an organisation that fights against apartheid, told Middle East Eye that the Israeli offensive is „clearly aiming to prepare the infrastructure for the annexation of land“ in the West Bank.
Annexation of occupied territory is illegal under international law. The Israeli government prefers to term it as „applying sovereignty“, though that makes little difference legally. Legality hasn‘t stopped Israel from annexation before, however.
MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash), warned Al Jazeera in an interview that the Palestinian refugee camps in the occupied West Bank are “in serious threat of total destruction.” “We saw in the last few days that both the refugee camp in Jenin and the refugee camp in Tulkarem are under a serious threat of total destruction and yet again another expulsion of Palestinian people from there,” he told Al Jazeera, saying this has nothing with security.
“I’m also afraid that this has been done in purpose by the Israeli government in order to foil the ceasefire in Gaza — that’s the reason I’m so worried,” Cassif added, appealing to countries in the region to not “leave behind your brothers and sisters in Palestine.” “Don’t leave the Palestinians who’ve been butchered for more than one year by the Israeli government, that should have been stopped months ago,” he said.
Briefing journalists in New York on Friday, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said UN aid coordination office, OCHA, remained “deeply alarmed” by the worsening conditions for residents in norther areas of the occupied West Bank, as Israeli counter-terrorism operations continued for an 11th day.
“Nearly all of the Jenin refugee camp’s 20,000 residents have been displaced over the past two month in the context of operations by both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli security forces.
A further Israeli operation is occurring in Tulkarm where aid partners report that over 110 families have been displaced from the refugee camp there.
The Commission also said the Israeli forces rounded up dozens of residents as part of their ongoing military raid in the Jenin and Tulkarem governorates.
Israeli forces withdrew from a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Saturday following a deadly two-day raid likened by Palestinians to the intensity of Second Intifada attacks.
The assault began late on Thursday with Israeli armoured vehicles and troops surrounding the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarm city.
For more than 50 hours, Israeli forces maintained a siege on the camp while they shot at residents, arrested scores of people and destroyed homes.