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The West Bank and Settlements

Key background
  • Israel took control of the West Bank from Jordan during the Six Day War of 1967. The West Bank refers to the west bank of the Jordan River, is also called by its biblical and geographic names of Judea and Samaria, or beyond the ‘Green Line’ that marked the boundary prior to 1967.
  • For Israel its significance is both religious and strategic. Often referred to as ‘the cradle of Jewish civilisation’, it is where the majority of biblical stories took place. It is also important strategically. Topographically, the mountain ridge overlooks Israel’s coastal plane. It also provides an element of strategic depth, without the West Bank Israel would be just 9 miles wide at its narrowest point.
  • Israeli settlements were first built in 1967 and gradually expanded across the West Bank with significant blocs east and south of Jerusalem. The population of the West Bank is estimated at just under 3 million, made up of around 500,000 Jews and 2.5million Palestinians.
  • According to the Oslo Accords of 1993 which were intended to act as the basis of a road map to a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C. Area A is under full Palestinian security and civil rule, Area B is under joint Israeli security and Palestinian civil rule, and Area C is under full Israeli security and civil rule.
  • Israeli settlements are only present in Area C, and the major Palestinian cities (Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and 80 percent of Hebron) as well as their surrounding areas fall under Area A which Israelis are forbidden to enter without special authorisation.

Updated October 21, 2024

300 Palestinians arrested over alleged Hamas affiliation

Reports suggest around 300 Palestinians with alleged Hamas affiliation were arrested in the West Bank this week .

  • The arrests have been interpreted both as a sign of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) insecurity over its weakening authority in the West Bank and as an effort to persuade the US and international community that it still remains in control.
  • Senior Hamas official Hussam Badran called the arrests a “stab in the back of the Palestinian national unity.”
  • While according to Lior Ackerman, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, Reichman University, “The PA of the end of 2022 is an entity without governance, very weak and lacking any vision or leadership strategy.”
  • According to the Palestinian Lawyers for Justice group, PA security forces have arrested or summoned for interrogation more than 500 Palestinian activists since the beginning of the year.
  • Also this week, Relatives of the Palestinian activist Nizar Banat announced that they are to file a case against Mahmoud Abbas’s PA at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over his death.
  • Banat, a long-time critic of the PA and Abbas, died following his arrest by Palestinian forces in June 2021. An autopsy showed he had suffered extensive beating.
  • Fourteen members of the PA security services were arrested over the incident, before being released on bail earlier this year.
  • The family’s case – which the ICC is not obliged to agree to hear – accuses seven PA figures of responsibility for Banat’s death.
  • It represents the first time the court has been presented with a case filed by Palestinians against Palestinians.
  • Hamas marked its 35th anniversary celebrations. Addressing the crowd remotely, Hamas’ military commander Mohammed al-Deif criticised the PA’s policy of security cooperation with Israel and called instead for support for the Lions’ Den group in Nablus, the Balata Brigades, and militia in Jenin with which Israel has been engaged in regular operations.
  • Yehiyeh Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza  said, “We have to give the chance to ignite the resistance in the West Bank.”
  • At the same event, Hamas displayed what it claimed was the assault rifle of Hadar Goldin, the Givati Brigade soldier killed in Gaza, along with his colleague Oron Shaul, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
  • Hamas retains both soldiers’ bodies and is also believed to be holding captive two Israelis: Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, both missing since crossing the border into Gaza in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
  • Sinwar also used his remarks to warn Israel that the window was rapidly closing for it to negotiate the return of Goldin and Shaul’s bodies.
  • In parallel the IDF this week also disclosed evidence of three rocket sites close to schools in Gaza City. According to their intelligence, staff at the Mo’ath Bin Jabal, the Khalil Al Nobani Secondary Female, and the Al-Furqan Public Schools were working in collaboration with Hamas.
  • An IDF statement said that the revelation provided further proof that Hamas ” uses the residents of the Gaza Strip, and in these cases innocent children, as human protectors.”

The week’s events show remaining hostility between Fatah and Hamas.

  • The events call into question the October reconciliation agreement, signed in Algeria by both Hamas and Fatah, designed to lessen conflict between the PA and Hamas.
  • Some Palestinian analysts speculated that Abbas had deliberately sought to sabotage the reconciliation talks.
  • Whilst the last few months have seen an increase in Israeli operations in the West Bank, relative quiet has prevailed on the Gazan front. However, in early December the IDF hit Hamas sites in Gaza in response to a single rocket fire directed at Southern Israel.
  • Although the rockets were thought to have been fired not by Hamas but by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Israel followed its policy of holding Hamas responsible for all terror emanating from Gaza.
  • Latest polling from the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed declining support for Abbas, with his decree forming a high council for the judiciary under his own control proving particularly unpopular.
  • Palestinian satisfaction (both West Bank and Gaza) with Abbas’s leadership was at 23%.
  • Other headline numbers from the poll showed substantial support for armed factions rival to the PA – 72% were in favour of independent groups like Lion’s Den.

The further erosion of PA control, together with increasing local popularity and Iranian support could see West Bank militias continue operations against Israelis, leading in turn to further Israeli raids in the West Bank under “Operation Breakwater”.

  • With Palestinian elections remaining a distant prospect, and with no clear succession plan for the 87-year-old Abbas, political disunity amongst the Palestinians is likely to continue.
  • Hamas deputy chief Khalil al-Hayya recently suggested that Algeria was set to host another series of reconciliation talks at the end of December.
  • Hamas’s failure to return the bodies of Goldin and Shaul make it unlikely that Israel will relax the opening of Gaza to humanitarian supplies and other material.

December 9, 2022

Counter-terror raid in Jenin yesterday

What happened? Three suspected Palestinian militants were killed during an Israeli counter-terrorism raid in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin yesterday.

  • The IDF said that its forces entered the camp to arrest terrorist suspect Khaled a-Hija when its troops came under “accurate fire” and responded in kind.
  • The local wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) later claimed responsibility for engaging Israeli troops with gunfire and explosives.
  • The dead have been named as Sidqi Zakarneh and Tariq al-Damej, both 29, and Atta Shalabi, 46
  • Khaled a-Hija was apprehended, as were suspects Ahmad Jaradat and Daajef Bages in other raids in Jenin.
  • The IDF confirmed that forces also conducted separate counter-terrorism raids in Bethlehem and in the West Bank towns of Abu Dis, Bitut, Silwad, Anata, Ein, Nabi Saleh, and Bayt Rima.
  • Further suspects were arrested in Hebron, Ramallah, Mahafiaa, Jabal Shamali and Bayt Furik, and illegal vehicles confiscated in the towns of Yata and Khirbet Carme.
  • Near the West Bank village of Aboud, 16-year-old Diaa Muhammad Shafiq al-Rimawi died in an incident in which the IDF says its troops opened fire after stones and bottles of paint were thrown at them.
  • Elsewhere in Jenin, troops arrested the father of Moujahid Mahmoud Hamed, who died after firing on an IDF post near the settlement of Ofra on Wednesday.
  • The IDF reported that no injuries to its troops were sustained during the various operations.

Jenin, in the Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A, has long been regarded as a hotbed of militant activity and is a frequent flashpoint for clashes between militants and the IDF.

  • Yesterday’s events echo similar incidents last week in which troops returned fire after being fired upon during an arrest raid in the city. Members of both PIJ and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade were killed.
  • These incidents follow further fatal West Bank clashes between Palestinians and the IDF in the last month, including in Beit Ummar near Hebron, and in Beit Rima and Al-Mughayyir, both near Ramallah.
  • The past year has seen a significant increase in both Palestinian terrorism and Israeli counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank.
  • The period has seen over 280 terror attacks (up from 91 in 2021), claiming the lives of 30 Israelis.
  • GazaHaving long armed and supported both Hamas and PIJ in Gaza, Iran has turned greater attention to growing the capacity and influence of proxies in the West Bank in the last 12 months.
  • PIJ in the West Bank has received significant funding from Tehran, which it has used to establish a series of local battalions whose personnel includes members of other, ostensibly rival, Palestinian factions.
  • Late November saw the first bomb attacks in Israel since 2016, with explosives in two locations near the entrance to Jerusalem claiming the lives of two Israelis.
  • In the face of this increase in what the IDF terms “popular terrorism” emanating from the territory, it has responded with “Operation Breakwater”.
  • 3,000 arrests have been carried out and over 500 attacks thwarted, according to Israeli Military Intelligence.
  • Analysts estimate that around half of the IDF’s troop resources are currently allocated to addressing West Bank threats.
  • Some 150 Palestinians have been killed, the majority during clashes with the IDF.
  • There has also been a significant rise in nationalist-motivated crime by right-wing Israelis against Palestinians.

Despite ongoing security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the pattern of the past year points to the latter’s declining authority in the West Bank.

  • Its policies of formal opposition to armed resistance and cooperation with Israel security are said to be reducing the Authority’s already waning popular appeal.
  • On Wednesday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement affirming, though with caveats, his commitment to these policies.
  • “Security coordination is a part of the agreements. When it comes to security coordination our approach is to fight terrorism no matter where,” Abbas said. “I do not support armed Palestinian resistance, but that could change. It could change — tomorrow, the next day or some other time. Everything changes.”
  • The influence of Hamas, PIJ, and other armed groups, meanwhile, continues to grow.
  • The impact of the likely appointments of far-right figures Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to portfolios with authority over civilian administration in the West Bank and the West Bank Border Police, respectively, remains to be seen. Outgoing Defence Minister Benny Gantz recently warned of the chances of an even greater escalation accompanying Ben Gvir’s appointment.

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