While the genocide in Gaza covers the media around the world, Israel has also taken important steps in the colonization of the territory in the West Bank. Dozens of homes have been shot down in the last week and have been killed in several cities. Last Thursday, three young Palestinians were killed in a raid in the city of Tulkarem. On Friday, a child was shot dead in the village of Beit Ummar, according to Wafa berri. Over 8,700 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank in the past seven months. Médecins Sans Frontières has denounced extreme violence in the West Bank since the beginning of the offensive in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has also denounced that the Israeli Government has taken another step in the attacks on the Palestinians in the West Bank. Omar Shakir, head of Israel and Palestine of the HRW, has pointed out that the Zionist army is continuously firing “unthreatened” people, people on flight or wounded or shot on the ground. Al Jazeera has explained to the media that in the last seven months they have carried out numerous raids in the homes of civil citizenship, killing their inhabitants or wounded, and even murdering Palestinian children who went to school. According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health of Gaza and Al Jazeera, Israel has killed 504 Palestinians since 7 October in the West Bank, 125 of them and 4,950 injured.

Israel Increases Occupation in the West Bank

According to Israeli media Haaretz, the Israeli government and colonial communities have used the context of the war to change the reality of the West Bank. They have increased the occupation, opened the boundaries of the colonies and further aggravated the relationship with the Palestinian population, “losing the modest restraint left to them”. Members of the illegal colonies occupy important positions in the far-right Zionist government, which has enabled them, according to Haaratz, to reach “critical power” in the occupied lands. Armed militias and uniformed settlers have experienced a great boom in recent months. The Israeli media warns that the Zionist army has given weapons to the inhabitants of the illegal colonies of the West Bank.

In the occupied West Bank, nearly three million Palestinians live and there are nearly 700,000 settlers in their illegal colonies. There are estimates that Palestinians cannot enter 61 per cent of the territory of the West Bank. The checkpoint, the barricades of the settlers and the attacks of the Zionist armies and settlers have broken the links between most cities and towns. Consequently, according to the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MGM), many Palestinians are unable to access basic health services and have serious difficulties in obtaining food, water, fuel and other products. According to data from the World Health Organization, Israel has attacked 447 health infrastructures in the West Bank since October last year.

MGM denounces that in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, violence is so severe that many Palestinians are too scared to leave the house. MGM collects the words of a neighbor from Madafer Yatta neighborhood in Hebron. “Most of the time it is forbidden to be in the house window. Once, looking out the window, a settler saw me and complained to the soldiers. The soldiers then entered my house and destroyed everything.”

Attacks in West Bank cities

According to the media of Al Jazeera and Al Mayade, the Israeli army has strongly invaded “all cities” in the West Bank in recent days. In cities such as Nablus, Tulkarem, Jeriko, Qalqilya, Jenin, Tubas, Belen, Ramallah, Hebron and Al-Bireh, the Zionists have attacked, but they have not been the only ones. The Yatma peasant community in southern Nablus has been attacked this week by Israeli settlers, who have set fire to Palestinian houses and workshops, according to Al Jazeera. In Jenin and Tulkarem, north of the West Bank, the Zionist army has attacked in recent days and killed several people. According to Israeli Haaretz, in recent months settlers have destroyed eighteen pastoralist communities in the West Bank under the protection of the army.