The Huge, Under-the-Radar Shift Happening in the West Bank
The streets looked like Gaza. Homes reduced to rubble, walls pockmarked by bullet holes, roads ripped apart by bulldozers. Neighborhood after neighborhood was deserted.
But this was not Gaza, a territory devastated by the war between Israel and the militant group Hamas, where tens of thousands have been killed and hunger stalks the population. It was the occupied West Bank, another Palestinian territory where the Israeli military has been tightening control in the most sweeping crackdown on militancy there in a generation.
The contours of the new offensive were unfolding during a recent visit by New York Times reporters to the city of Jenin, among the once densely populated neighborhoods that have been cleared out since an operation began in January. In one of those areas, more than 10,000 people lived until recently. Now, it is empty — its roads blocked by mounds of dirt and flanked by piles of rubble.
This week, the Israeli military said it would be demolishing homes in Tulkarm, a city near Jenin, to make crowded neighborhoods and streets more accessible to Israeli forces and to prevent the re-emergence of militants.
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
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Unarmed Palestinian brothers killed in Israeli raid on West Bank's Nablus
A Palestinian man in a red cap walks down the narrow alleyway in Nablus's old city towards a group of Israeli soldiers, clearly unarmed. He attempts to talk to the soldiers, who had flooded into the occupied West Bank city in the early hours of Tuesday as part of Israel's latest military raid – believed to be the largest carried out in Nablus in two years. The soldiers immediately kick and shove the man – 40-year-old Nidal Umairah – before his brother walks over, attempting to intervene. Gunfire follows, and soon the two brothers are lying dead. Nidal and his brother 35-year-old brother Khaled were the latest victims of Israel in the West Bank, after they were killed late on Tuesday. It is unclear which brother had initially been detained, but witnesses were adamant that the behaviour of the Israeli soldiers was an unnecessary escalation that led to the deaths of yet more Palestinians. Ghassan Hamdan, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Nablus, was at the scene of the killings. 'There were at least 12 soldiers and they all fired their automatic machine guns at once,' said Hamdan. After the two men fell to the ground [medics] asked the soldiers if we could treat their wounds. They answered by firing at all of us.' 'We all took cover behind the walls of the old city,' he told Al Jazeera. Hamza Abu Hajar, a paramedic at the scene, said that the Umairah brother who had initially approached the Israeli soldiers had been trying to go to his house to move his family out and away from the Israeli raid. 'They lifted his shirt up to prove he was unarmed,' Abu Hajar said. 'They then started shooting at him, and at us as well.' The Israeli army said it acted in self-defence after one of the Umairah brothers tried to seize a weapon from a soldier. It said that four soldiers had been injured in the raid in Nablus, which lasted more than 24 hours, is the latest Israel has conducted in the West Bank. Israel has taken advantage of the world's focus on its own war on Gaza since October 2023 to escalate its land theft and violence in the West Bank. During that span, Israel has killed at least 930 people in the West Bank, 24 of whom were from Nablus, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Many of these deaths are the result of violent Israeli raids ostensibly aimed at clamping down on Palestinian fighters in the West Bank, but which have resulted in mass destruction and thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes. According to Hamdan, Israeli troops mainly targeted Nablus's old city by storming into hundreds of homes in the middle of the night. Dozens of people were also reportedly arrested. Young people in the city protested by burning tyres and throwing rocks at Israeli troops, yet they were met with heavy tear gas, injuring at least 80 Palestinians in the raid. In the past, Palestinian protesters have been imprisoned on 'terrorism' charges or shot and killed for simply resisting Israel's occupation by throwing rocks or defying Israeli soldiers. This time around, the Israelis classified the entire old city in Nablus as a closed military zone for 24 hours. No ambulances or medics were allowed inside to aid distressed residents, said Hamdan. 'Nobody was allowed in or out. Nobody was allowed to make any movement at all. We [as medics] could not enter the area during the entire raid to try and help people in need,' he told Al the raid, Israeli troops stormed into several apartments after blowing off door hinges with explosives. 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Judge: Marco Rubio's determination is not enough to detain Mahmoud Khalil
Secretary of State Marco Rubio (pictured in May) had determined that Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil's presence in the United States runs counter to U.S. foreign policy. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo June 11 (UPI) -- Syrian national Mahmoud Khalil can't be detained and deported due to foreign policy concerns by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a federal district court judge ruled on Wednesday. Rubio had determined that Khalil's presence in the United States -- while organizing campus protests favoring Hamas while enrolled at Columbia University -- runs counter to U.S. foreign policy. U.S. District Court of New Jersey Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled Rubio's determination is insufficient to warrant Khalil's detention and deportation, NBC News and The Hill reported. Rubio also suggested Khalil concealed his alleged connections with Hamas when he applied for a U.S. visa. "It might be argued that [Khalil] would be detained anyway," Farbiarz wrote. "The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to remove [Khalil] based not only on the Secretary of State's determination but also on ... the petitioner's alleged failure to accurately complete his lawful-permanent-resident application." While the DHS might have a stronger and enforceable claim to detain and deport Khalil, Farbiarz said Rubio's determination is not enough to warrant his continued detention and eventual deportation. Federal authorities arrested Khalil in March with the intention of deporting him, but Farbiarz said Khalil's "career and reputation" are damaged by his arrest. Farbiarz said Khalil has suffered "irreparable harm" but agreed the DHS might have a strong enough case to deport him because he did not accurately complete a lawful-permanent-resident application. Such instances don't result in individuals being detained, though, Farbiarz said. "That strongly suggests that it is the Secretary of State's determination that drives [Khalil's] ongoing going detention -- not the other charges against him," the judge wrote. He issued a preliminary injunction and ordered the Trump administration to release Khalil, but not until Friday. The delay gives the Trump administration time to appeal the ruling. A federal immigration judge in April ruled the Trump administration can deport Khalil. President Joe Biden appointed Farbiarz to the federal bench in 2023.
