THIS WEEK, the Israeli military carried out an extensive raid on the West Bank city of Jenin and nearby towns, resulting in the deaths of at least eight Palestinians and the arrest of an unspecified number of locals.
For two days, troops, bulldozers, drones, helicopters, and warplanes assaulted the region before pulling out on Wednesday evening.
According to Kamal Abu al-Rab, the head of Jenin governorate, Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of two individuals killed in the village of Kufr Dan, located west of Jenin city.
On Wednesday evening, the Israeli military also initiated incursions into Tulkarem and Qalqilya, wounding at least two Palestinians with live fire.
The recent raids on Jenin and adjacent areas are just the latest in a series of attacks on towns and cities within the occupied West Bank.
Since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023, its military has conducted numerous incursions across the territory, increasing in both frequency and intensity.
In August, Israel initiated ‘Operation Summer Camps’, a large-scale military invasion of the West Bank, fiercely attacking northern cities like Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, and Tubas.
Palestinians now fear that Israel plans to further escalate its campaign of annexation and ethnic cleansing in the upcoming months under the incoming Trump administration, paralleling its genocidal assault on Gaza.
On Wednesday, journalists and residents in Jenin shared videos showing extensive damage to civilian infrastructure: homes demolished or set ablaze, roads torn up and destroyed.
The footage also captured explosions occurring throughout the city, and Apache helicopters hovering overhead.
On Wednesday, military bulldozers demolished several power lines, causing a total power outage throughout Jenin.
The Israeli military also declared that it had carried out airstrikes on the city, killing at least two Palestinians, as reported by local residents.
Palestinian resistance fighters reacted to the invasion by firing at Israeli troops and detonating homemade improvised explosive devices.
‘The Israeli military began this invasion at midnight on Monday. There were at least six bulldozers in Jenin,’ said Rocky Rakan, a resident of Jenin, noting that the military operation targeted crucial infrastructure in the camp.
‘The destruction by the bulldozers is even worse than that during the ten-day siege,’ he remarked, referencing a major Israeli military operation in the area several months prior.
‘They have destroyed primary electricity sources in the city and are still bulldozing the streets for the second day now.’
According to local journalists on the ground, soldiers stormed homes in the Jenin refugee camp, stationing snipers inside and utilising them as military bases.
Palestinian residents, including women, were used as human shields by the Israeli army during the camp’s invasion, as stated by the governor of Jenin on Wednesday evening.
Residents were compelled to stay inside their homes during the military assault, and classes at all public and private schools were suspended for two days.
According to eyewitnesses, several residents were arrested and subjected to various forms of ill-treatment. Some were taken to Israeli detention centres, including Jalameh prison, while others were held at gunpoint in the streets for extended periods before being released.
Mahmoud El-Saadi, the head of the emergency unit for the Red Crescent in Jenin, reported that Israeli troops have also targeted emergency workers.
‘The Israeli military prevented medics from reaching two men in the eastern area, and then the army took the medics and used them as human shields at gunpoint,’ El-Saadi said. ‘They used some to invade homes, forcing them to open doors and turn on their lights.’
El-Saadi added that Israeli troops have detained and abused medics.
‘Soldiers beat medics and subjected them to humiliation and physical abuse. In these two days, they have enacted all sorts of torture and forced medics to pick up weapons from the ground,’ he stated.
‘They forced medics to sit on the cold floor for extended periods, usually in strenuous positions while facing a wall. They are only released after negotiations with the Israeli commander of the district through the Red Cross.’
Footage shared online also shows Israeli military vehicles blocking ambulances and hindering medical assistance during the raids. ‘There seems to be a clear policy to attack medics and ambulances to curb their capacity at providing services,’ El-Saadi said.
‘During every invasion, there is a form of attack (against medics)’, he added. ‘Even moving from one area to the next is difficult. The streets are so destroyed that you’d think an earthquake hit. If it rains, then it’s going to flood.’
‘The levels of abuse and humiliation for medical staff are increasing; it’s common practice to humiliate them, use them as human shields, beat them, and detain them while they are trying to provide emergency aid to people.’
According to the health ministry, the intensifying Israeli military campaigns in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, combined with rising settler violence, have resulted in nearly 800 Palestinian deaths, including over 160 children.
- Israel’s intensified campaign in the West Bank this week follows Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections.
The Biden administration, which has fully armed, supported, and backed Israel in its most violent assault on Palestinians since its founding in 1948, has helped lay the groundwork for Israel’s full annexation of the West Bank under the incoming Trump administration.
Trump has maintained close ties with several Zionist and pro-Israel figures, appointing many to serve in his administration.
The largest financier of Trump’s 2024 election campaign was Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-American billionaire who contributed $100 million to the effort.
Adelson, whose late husband was casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has long advocated for the annexation of the West Bank.
Following the US presidential election, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised Donald Trump’s victory, stating that his incoming administration presents an ‘important opportunity’ to ‘apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria,’ Biblical terms used by Zionists to refer to the West Bank.
In one of his first decisions as president-elect, Trump nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel.
‘Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,’ Trump said in his announcement of the pick, posted to Truth Social.
A prominent Christian Zionist, Huckabee first visited Israel in 1973 and has been leading Christian pilgrimages there for decades since.
‘There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,’ he said during his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, adding that the very concept of Palestinian identity is ‘a political tool to try and force land away from Israel’.
Huckabee has also openly advocated for the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. In a 2017 appearance on CNN, he claimed: ‘There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.’
In 2019, Huckabee urged Trump to endorse an Israeli annexation of the West Bank prior to the announcement of the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab states normalise relations with Israel.
After Huckabee’s appointment, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, posted on X ‘Mike Huckabee’ with a heart between the Israeli and American flags.
Smotrich also praised Huckabee’s appointment, stating that with him, Israel would reinforce its hold over the occupied territories.
In an interview on Israeli radio after his appointment, Huckabee was asked whether Israel’s annexation of the West Bank was a possibility under a second Trump administration.
‘Well of course,’ he replied. ‘I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president, but he has already demonstrated in his first term that there’s never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel — from the moving of the embassy, recognition of the Golan Heights, and Jerusalem as the capital, no one has done more than President Trump and I fully expect that will continue.’
Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is also a strong supporter of Israel who criticised the Biden administration for imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organisations.
In an August 2024 letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Rubio referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and called Jerusalem the capital of Israel. ‘Israelis rightfully living in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are,’ he wrote.
Other potential appointees who could influence policies affecting Palestine include New York Representative Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik led the questioning of Ivy League university presidents at congressional hearings over allegations of antisemitism on campus during pro-Palestine protests.
In May, she visited Israel and delivered an address to the Knesset. ‘Each and every one of these visits to Israel underscores to me the fundamental facts that Israel is a miracle and that Israel is foundational to the United States,’ she said later.
Trump also appointed his longtime friend and golfing partner, Steven Witkoff, as a special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff, who lacks foreign policy experience, is a pro-Israel donor to Trump’s campaign and attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July.
In a recent interview, he said that the speech ‘felt spiritual’ and criticised Democrats for not showing their full support.