As Israel drops bombs on the occupied West Bank, some fear it will become a new Gaza
Once rare, Israel's use of airstrikes in the occupied West Bank has soared since Oct. 7, 2023, stoking fears that it is deploying the military tactics there that it used in the Gaza Strip, some 60 miles away.
'There wasn't a time in the history of the occupation, not even during the Second Intifada, that the use of airstrikes had become so severe and deadly,' in the West Bank, Shai Parnes, spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, told NBC News, referring to the Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
However, by B'Tselem's count, since Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli military has increasingly dropped bombs on the territory: at least 69 airstrikes in the West Bank killed 261 people, including 41 under the age of 19. At least 28 of those 261 people have been killed since Jan. 19, Parnes said.
The rise in airstrikes, according to a report published by B'Tselem on Wednesday, speaks to the increasingly destructive path that human rights groups say Israel has taken in the West Bank, with its operations accelerating since the Jan. 19 ceasefire in Gaza.
While B'Tselem does not have complete data for Israeli airstrikes launched in the West Bank in the years before the start of the current war, Parnes said that is mainly because they were uncommon, with data compiled by the human rights group finding that over the span of 18 years from 2005 to Oct. 7, 2023, a total of 14 people were killed in the territory in airstrike-related incidents.
Israeli security forces launched an ongoing offensive in the West Bank city of Jenin in January, two days after the latest ceasefire in Gaza. The Israeli military said the assault was aimed at stamping out militant groups in the Palestinian territory, and had led to a rise in deadly strikes and mass displacement.
In a statement sent to NBC News on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces said its offensive began after a 'significant increase in terror attacks' in the West Bank, but it maintained that there had been 'no change in the rules of engagement.'
The United Nations warned that Israel's weekslong raid has become "by far the single longest Israeli Forces' operation" in the West Bank, with a devastating toll that has included at least 69 Palestinians killed and more than 40,000 people displaced from their homes across targeted areas, including Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Nablus.
The dozens killed in recent weeks add to a growing death toll in the West Bank, with at least 897 Palestinians killed, including 190 under the age of 19, since Oct. 7, 2023, according to a database run by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) — a dramatic rise from 253 Palestinians killed in the year before Oct. 7, 2023.
Most of the rising casualties in the West Bank have been attributed to settler violence and clashes with settlers and Israeli security forces.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and negotiator, said that while he believed the realities of mass displacement were 'very traumatic,' he felt there was 'no comparison' between either the 'intensity of the might Israel is using in the West Bank compared to Gaza, 'nor in the seriousness of the threat' that militants in the West Bank pose compared to Hamas in Gaza.
Still, pointing to scenes of people fleeing their homes and buildings burnt out and destroyed in the West Bank, Parnes also said that rhetoric from Israeli lawmakers suggested a desire, at least on the part of some, to see the 'Gazification' of the West Bank, with far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calling in January for for areas such as Jenin and Nablus to be made to "look like Jabalia," a city in northern Gaza largely reduced to rubble during the war.
Mustafa Barghouti, a veteran Palestinian political activist, said he shared Parnes' concerns of Israeli forces using similar tactics deployed in Gaza, where more than 48,500 people have been killed, according to local health officials, and around 70% of the infrastructure has been destroyed, according to the United Nations.
'It's a very dangerous strategy they are using,' he said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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