THE Israeli regime has ramped up its aggression on the occupied West Bank by conducting violent raids on several areas in Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, at a time that the illegal entity is engaged in a genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Palestinian media said a Palestinian young man was injured at dawn on Wednesday by live bullets and three others were detained during the occupation forces’ storming of Nablus.
The official WAFA news agency cited sources in the Palestine Red Crescent as reporting that an 18-year-old young man was injured by Israeli bullets in the foot after the occupation forces stormed two refugee camps east of the city.
Local sources said the Israeli forces raided the Balata and Askar al-Qadeem refugee camps, which led to the outbreak of confrontations during which the occupation forces fired live bullets, gas and sound bombs, and injured an unspecified number people.
The sources added that Israeli forces stormed several neighbourhoods in the city, including Rafidia, and deployed their snipers on the rooftops of some residential buildings.
Two young men were detained in Rafidia after the forces raided and searched their homes.
According to other local sources, the occupation forces stormed the village of Qasra, south of Nablus, at dawn and raided al-Ain area and several homes before detaining a youth.
In the northern West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp, the Israeli occupation forces continued for the 8th consecutive day their military aggression by demolishing and bulldozing Palestinian homes and infrastructure, Palestine’s Safa News Agency said.
The forces carried out bombing operations inside the camp’s neighbourhoods and burned tarpaulins, which led to a number of citizens’ homes catching fire and burning in al-Swalmeh neighbourhood.
The Palestine Red Crescent reported that eight citizens suffocated as a result of the fire caused by the occupation in the camp.
The occupation bulldozers also continued to destroy the infrastructure and the citizens’ property in the camp, causing extensive damage and destruction.
The Israeli forces raided Palestinian homes in Balawneh neighbourhood, searched them and subjected their residents to interrogation.
In the city of Tulkarm, the regime’s bulldozers closed roads and streets leading to the Tulkarm refugee camp and the Martyr Thabet Hospital, destroying vegetable stalls and citizens’ property and uprooting trees.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli troops prevented its crew from reaching the 16-year-old girl in the shooting area.
Faisal Salama, head of the Popular Committee of Tulkarm camp, described the refugee camp as a disaster area due to repeated acts of aggression, and the tight siege after the occupation forces destroyed the infrastructure and electricity, water, and sewage networks, homes and facilities, in addition to the humanitarian and psychological situation of patients, children, women, and the elderly.
Salama called for international protection for the residents of the camp, and for immediate action to stop Israel’s aggression, war of extermination, systematic displacement and organised terrorism.
The Israeli forces also detained four people from the towns of Bal’a, east of Tulkarm, and Kafr Jamal, south of the city, after raiding their homes, searching them and vandalising their property.
The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the aggression at dawn on Wednesday has risen to 34, including 19 in Jenin, 8 in Tulkarm, 4 in Tubas, and 3 in al-Khalil, bringing to 685 the death toll in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023.
The heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank come as the Israeli regime has since October last year been conducting a barbaric onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of more than 40,000 people, most of them women and children.
- Several Arab countries have dismissed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s allegations that weapons are being smuggled to the Palestinian Hamas resistance group through the Egyptian border.
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry expressed its rejection of Netanyahu’s statements about the Philadelphi Corridor – a demilitarised area along Egypt’s border with Gaza – stressing they are ‘baseless allegations aimed at obstructing the mediation efforts undertaken by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to reach a swap deal leading to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza’.
It reiterated its ‘full solidarity with Egypt in confronting all Israeli claims’.
The ministry rejected ‘all claims promoted by Israeli officials in futile attempts to justify the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the occupied West Bank’ and said it considers the accusations to be a ‘condemnable incitement and an escalation that aggravates the serious tension in the region’.
In his first public address since Sunday’s mass protests that saw hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers urging a deal with Hamas for the release of captives being held in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu said he will not relinquish Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
Netanyahu claimed the corridor is vital to ensuring Hamas cannot rearm via tunnels. ‘This is the oxygen of Hamas,’ he said.
‘No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me … No one will preach to me on this issue,’ he further claimed.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry also voiced ‘full solidarity with the brotherly Arab Republic of Egypt and its rejection of the statements made by the prime minister of the Israeli occupation’.
It said that through remarks, Netanyahu ‘tried to use Egypt’s name to distract Israeli public opinion and obstruct joint mediation efforts aimed at a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the exchange of captives and detainees.’
‘The Israeli occupation’s approach based on an attempt to falsify facts and mislead world public opinion by repeating lies will ultimately lead to the demise of peace efforts and the expansion of violence in the region,’ it warned.
It also stressed the need ‘to strengthen regional and international efforts to oblige Israel to immediately end its brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, in preparation for addressing the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip’.
Hamas says Netanyahu’s latest comments that Israel must control Philadelphi corridor in Gaza attest to his desperation, and liability for the Gaza truce failure.
For its part, the Palestinian presidency also condemned ‘statements made by Netanyahu aimed at justifying the continuation of the aggression against our people’.
It expressed appreciation for ‘the Egyptian role in opposing the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land’.
Additionally, the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry accused Israel of trying ‘to hinder joint mediation efforts by Egypt, Qatar, and the US that aim to reach a ceasefire in Gaza’.
Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman also joined the Arab countries’ solidarity with Egypt in the face of Netanyahu’s allegations.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry strongly condemned Netanyahu’s claims, lambasting Israel for attempting to ‘derail efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and perpetuate ongoing violations by Israeli forces’.
It rejected Israel’s attempts to distort truth and mislead the international community about the border area between Gaza and Egypt.
The ministry went on to call for ‘intensified regional and international efforts to pressure Israel to end its aggression in Gaza immediately, and to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the territory’.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry also censured Netanyahu’s remarks, describing them as ‘baseless’ and part of an ‘ongoing attempt to justify Israel’s continuous violations of international laws and norms’.
Riyadh warned that such provocative comments only undermined mediation efforts to establish a ceasefire in Gaza.
- The European Union has expressed concern regarding NATO member Turkey’s ongoing bid to join the BRICS organisation, saying that as an EU membership candidate, Ankara had to ‘respect’ the EU’s ‘values’ and foreign policy preferences, despite its being free to join the alliances of its choosing.
EU spokesman Peter Stano made the remarks at a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday after Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party confirmed that Ankara had formally applied for BRICS’ membership.
Stano said Turkey had the right to choose which international alliances to join.
The country, however, was still a candidate for EU membership, he added, saying that the bloc expected such candidates to share its values and fully align their foreign policies with it.
Ankara has been in negotiations to join the EU since 2005. Progress in the talks has essentially been frozen, though, due to political roadblocks created by certain EU members faulting, what they call, the country’s democratic shortcomings.
Ankara sees the reasons hindering its EU accession as obstacles unrelated to its suitability for membership. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly warned that his country could part ways with the European Union in reaction to the bloc’s long-drawn-out failure to honour its pledge to accept Ankara as a member.
The country’s BRICS aspirations also come amid rifts with fellow members of the United States-led Western military alliance of NATO, which have disagreed its retaining close relations with Russia after the launch of Moscow’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised Brussels for not honouring its long-time membership promise to Turkey, saying he ‘no longer expects anything from the European Union’.
If admitted, Turkey would become the first NATO member in BRICS, which is seen as a geopolitical counterweight to Western power and influence.
Observers say that the frictions have prompted Turkey to seek to foster better relations with the East, including through joining BRICS that would translate into enhanced ties with Russia and China.
Attending a BRICS summit in June, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan touted the body as ‘an organisation that increases the diversity of approaches, identities, and politics in the global economic system’.
Also on Tuesday, Yuri Ushakov, assistant to Russian President Vladmir Putin, said Erdogan had accepted Russian authorities’ invitation to participate in the upcoming summit of BRICS that is to be held in the western Russian city of Kazan in October.
BRICS features Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.
The bloc, which is often seen as an alternative to the Western economic and political hegemony, comprises almost 46 per cent of the global population, 36 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), and 25 per cent of the global trade measured in terms of exports.
