Why Is Israel Targeting the West Bank After Gaza?

What's happening in the West Bank?

Just two days after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip came into effect on January 19, 2025, the Israeli military launched a large-scale operation in the West Bank codenamed Operation “Iron Wall.” The West Bank is an occupied territory separate from the Gaza Strip.

Along with East Jerusalem, the territory has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. There are 700,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem among 2.7 million Palestinians.

Since October 7, 2023, the start of the Hamas-Israel war, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Jewish settlers have been killed in the West Bank. In addition, thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank have been detained by the Israeli army.

Not only launched by the Israeli military, attacks on Palestine in the West Bank were also carried out by Jewish settlers. On January 21, 2025, under the escort of the Israeli army, they burned down Palestinian homes, gardens, workshops, and vehicles in Jinsafut, Fanduq, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron City, Sinjil Village (Ramallah), Ein Siniy Village, Turmus Aya,

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli attacks on the West Bank since the beginning of this year have killed 70 people. Israel acknowledged that at least 50 Palestinian militants have been killed since the operation was launched in the territory.

Why is Israel attacking the West Bank?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “Iron Wall” operation was carried out on a large scale and was important. The targets, he said, were “the Iranian axis that supplies weapons in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Judea and Samaria.”

The terms "Judea" and "Samaria" are often used by Israeli officials to refer to the occupied West Bank. One of the targets of the most brutal attacks was the refugee camp in Jenin.

However, as quoted by Al Jazeera, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that Israel's recent military attacks on the West Bank were "an attempt to turn Jenin into the next Gaza".

The attack on the West Bank is seen as an attempt by Netanyahu to restore his power which has begun to falter following the ceasefire in Gaza, especially from the right-wing groups that once supported him.

Palestinian Presidential Spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh, in a statement reported by the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, Monday (3/2/2025), said that Israel's current steps are part of a plan to expel the Palestinian people and an act of ethnic cleansing.

Why is Jenin often attacked by Israel?

In the recent Israeli invasion codenamed Operation "Iron Wall", the city of Jenin has become one of the main targets. For a long time, the city of Jenin has been known as a symbol of the unity of the Palestinian resistance movement. In the city, all Palestinian movements from Fatah, Hamas, and other factions unite under the Palestinian flag without highlighting their respective factions.

Located in the northern West Bank with a population of around 40,000 (a Muslim majority and a Christian minority), Jenin refugee camp is home to around 10,000 refugees. Jenin refugee camp was established in the early 1950s to accommodate Palestinians who were displaced from the Palestinian cities on the Mediterranean coast, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Hadera, and Acre, which fell to Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Professor of political science and international relations at Hebron University, Jalal Shubky, Jenin city Jenin city inherits the history of Palestinian resistance since the 1930s, against British colonialism until the current era of Israeli occupation. The city is the birthplace of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas faction.

What was the response of Palestinian officials and the international community?

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the brutal actions of the demolition of buildings in Jenin by Israel in the recent "Iron Wall" operation. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged an emergency session of the United Nations (UN) Security Council to stop the demolition of Palestinian refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm by Israel.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed concern over the existential threat to the Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, amid the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements, and with senior Israeli officials openly speaking about formally annexing all or part of the West Bank in the coming months.

“Such an annexation would be a most serious violation of international law,” Guterres said.

How will the US and the Western world behave?

Shortly after being inaugurated on January 20, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the lifting of sanctions against illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank who violate international law. Previously, the administration of President Joe Biden had asserted that the presence of Jewish settlers was an extremist settler movement.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right figure, praised Trump's move to lift sanctions on illegal Jewish settlers who commit violence against Palestinians and said he was ready to work with the United States to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

France expressed serious concern about the escalation in the West Bank and called on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint. Canada echoed this sentiment. The European Union, as quoted by the Wafa news agency, called the situation in the West Bank a warning sign.