Palestinians defiant and angry after Israel's Jenin raid
Wed, July 5, 2023
By Ali Sawafta
JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian militant fighters paraded in Jenin on Wednesday and angry crowds confronted senior Palestinian Authority officials, accusing them of weakness, after one of the largest Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank in years.
The two-day operation, which the Israeli military said targeted infrastructure and weapons depots of militant factions in the Jenin refugee camp, left a trail of wrecked streets and burned-out cars and sparked fury across the Arab world.
At least 12 Palestinians, most confirmed as militant fighters, were killed and around 100 wounded in an incursion that began with late-night drone strikes, followed by a sweep involving more than 1,000 Israeli troops. One Israeli soldier was killed.
"We stayed inside the house, but then they cut off the electricity then the water," said Mohammad Mansour, a resident of the camp where armoured bulldozers tore up streets to expose roadside bombs, cutting power cables and water pipes.
"We ended up running out of bread and supplies ... I've never been through such days."
At a funeral for 10 of the dead, thousands of mourners, including dozens of gunmen, confronted three senior Palestinian Authority leaders, chanting "Get out! Get out!" They forced them to leave under protection of guards who used tear gas to push back the crowds.
The Authority, which exercises nominal governance over parts of the West Bank, protested against the Israeli operation, which it called a war crime, but was unable to do anything to halt it.
RESIDENTS DEFIANT
Following the withdrawal of the Israeli force on Tuesday evening, leaders of Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and other armed factions claimed victory, and the mood among residents returning home to the camp appeared defiant.
"They did not get what they wanted, thank God. The youths are fine, the families are fine, and the camp is fine," Mutasem Estatia, a father of six, said after what he described as two nights being kept away, one of them in Israeli detention.
"There are 12 martyrs and we are proud of them, but we expected more damage."
Israeli forces detained 150 suspected militants, seized large caches of money, guns and roadside mines - including an arsenal under a mosque - and destroyed a command centre, the army said. It said all the Palestinians killed were armed fighters. Islamic Jihad claimed eight as members, with Hamas claiming another.
As the troops withdrew overnight, Israel reported a volley of rockets from the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory, which is run by Hamas. The rockets were shot down and Israel's air force struck targets in Gaza, causing no casualties.
In a further sign of violence spilling over from Jenin, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in Tel Aviv and went on a stabbing spree, wounding eight people before he was shot dead. Hamas claimed him as a member.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday the Jenin operation was unlikely to be a "one-off" and said it would be "the beginning of regular incursions and continuous control of the territory".
In turn, the spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, said "every alley and street will soon turn into clashes and fighting fields."
'THINGS WE FACED 20 YEARS AGO'
The scale of the Israeli operation, one of the biggest in 20 years, pointed to the growing strength of the militant groups in Jenin, where Israel estimates almost half the population is affiliated to Islamic Jihad or Hamas.
"War rooms, explosive devices, planting powerful but primitive mines based on solar water heaters or similar objects - these are things we faced 20 years ago in Gaza," said Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, a former army general."
"Only then they were buried in the sand and now they had to be buried in asphalt."
The operation also underlined the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, set up some 30 years ago after the Oslo peace accords, which has been unable to impose itself against either Israel or militant groups in Jenin or nearby Nablus.
Both cities have been traditional centres of Palestinian resistance, but their semi-detached position from Palestinian Authority control has become more pronounced as a wave of violence has swept the West Bank over the past two years.
In Jenin, footage circulating on social media showed hundreds throwing rocks at the wall of the Palestinian Authority governor in the early hours of the morning.
Israel has been fiercely critical of the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas, 87, accusing them of failing to rein in the militant groups.
PA officials in turn say Israel makes it impossible to exert control by deliberately undermining their authority and blocking any attempt to create the basis for a future Palestinian state in the West Bank, which Israel seized after the 1967 Middle East war.
Surveys show almost 80% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign but without any designated successor and with no elections held for almost 20 years, it remains unclear who might replace him.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Conor Humphries and Peter Graff)
Wed, July 5, 2023
By Ali Sawafta
JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian militant fighters paraded in Jenin on Wednesday and angry crowds confronted senior Palestinian Authority officials, accusing them of weakness, after one of the largest Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank in years.
The two-day operation, which the Israeli military said targeted infrastructure and weapons depots of militant factions in the Jenin refugee camp, left a trail of wrecked streets and burned-out cars and sparked fury across the Arab world.
At least 12 Palestinians, most confirmed as militant fighters, were killed and around 100 wounded in an incursion that began with late-night drone strikes, followed by a sweep involving more than 1,000 Israeli troops. One Israeli soldier was killed.
"We stayed inside the house, but then they cut off the electricity then the water," said Mohammad Mansour, a resident of the camp where armoured bulldozers tore up streets to expose roadside bombs, cutting power cables and water pipes.
"We ended up running out of bread and supplies ... I've never been through such days."
At a funeral for 10 of the dead, thousands of mourners, including dozens of gunmen, confronted three senior Palestinian Authority leaders, chanting "Get out! Get out!" They forced them to leave under protection of guards who used tear gas to push back the crowds.
The Authority, which exercises nominal governance over parts of the West Bank, protested against the Israeli operation, which it called a war crime, but was unable to do anything to halt it.
RESIDENTS DEFIANT
Following the withdrawal of the Israeli force on Tuesday evening, leaders of Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and other armed factions claimed victory, and the mood among residents returning home to the camp appeared defiant.
"They did not get what they wanted, thank God. The youths are fine, the families are fine, and the camp is fine," Mutasem Estatia, a father of six, said after what he described as two nights being kept away, one of them in Israeli detention.
"There are 12 martyrs and we are proud of them, but we expected more damage."
Israeli forces detained 150 suspected militants, seized large caches of money, guns and roadside mines - including an arsenal under a mosque - and destroyed a command centre, the army said. It said all the Palestinians killed were armed fighters. Islamic Jihad claimed eight as members, with Hamas claiming another.
As the troops withdrew overnight, Israel reported a volley of rockets from the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian territory, which is run by Hamas. The rockets were shot down and Israel's air force struck targets in Gaza, causing no casualties.
In a further sign of violence spilling over from Jenin, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in Tel Aviv and went on a stabbing spree, wounding eight people before he was shot dead. Hamas claimed him as a member.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday the Jenin operation was unlikely to be a "one-off" and said it would be "the beginning of regular incursions and continuous control of the territory".
In turn, the spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, said "every alley and street will soon turn into clashes and fighting fields."
'THINGS WE FACED 20 YEARS AGO'
The scale of the Israeli operation, one of the biggest in 20 years, pointed to the growing strength of the militant groups in Jenin, where Israel estimates almost half the population is affiliated to Islamic Jihad or Hamas.
"War rooms, explosive devices, planting powerful but primitive mines based on solar water heaters or similar objects - these are things we faced 20 years ago in Gaza," said Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, a former army general."
"Only then they were buried in the sand and now they had to be buried in asphalt."
The operation also underlined the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, set up some 30 years ago after the Oslo peace accords, which has been unable to impose itself against either Israel or militant groups in Jenin or nearby Nablus.
Both cities have been traditional centres of Palestinian resistance, but their semi-detached position from Palestinian Authority control has become more pronounced as a wave of violence has swept the West Bank over the past two years.
In Jenin, footage circulating on social media showed hundreds throwing rocks at the wall of the Palestinian Authority governor in the early hours of the morning.
Israel has been fiercely critical of the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas, 87, accusing them of failing to rein in the militant groups.
PA officials in turn say Israel makes it impossible to exert control by deliberately undermining their authority and blocking any attempt to create the basis for a future Palestinian state in the West Bank, which Israel seized after the 1967 Middle East war.
Surveys show almost 80% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign but without any designated successor and with no elections held for almost 20 years, it remains unclear who might replace him.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Conor Humphries and Peter Graff)
- A general view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, Monday, Jan. 30, 2023. The European Union withdrew the monitoring mission formed to promote a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians from Gaza after the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007. But 16 years later, the mission continues to maintain offices in Israel in hopes of one day returning. Critics say the ongoing Western commitment to the two-state solution fails to recognize the changing circumstances in the region and maintains a costly-status quo.
(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, File)
JOSEF FEDERMAN
Thu, July 6, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — It’s been 16 years since the borders of the Gaza Strip slammed shut after Hamas militants seized control of the territory.
The takeover forced the European Union to withdraw monitors who had been deployed at a Gaza border crossing to help the Palestinians prepare for independence. Yet the EU has regularly renewed funding for the unit since then, most recently late last month.
The continued existence of the unit known as EUBAM is an extreme example of the West’s willingness to keep pumping hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the moribund vision of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Proponents say this approach remains the best chance for securing an eventual peace deal. Critics argue that opting for such costly conflict management helps keep a 56-year-old Israeli military occupation in place and allows Europe and the U.S. to avoid making the hard political decisions needed to end the conflict.
This week's deadly Israeli raid of a West Bank militant stronghold and previous eruptions of violence also underscore the limits of international efforts to contain the conflict.
“The international community, in my view, understands the reality that the two-state solution is gone,” said Marwan Muasher, a onetime Jordanian foreign minister and former ambassador to Israel. “It does not want to acknowledge this publicly, because acknowledging it publicly is going to have to force the international community to start talking about alternatives, all of them problematic.”
Muasher, now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is unusual among his peers. The legions of diplomats and politicians who have devoted their careers to Mideast peacemaking remain committed to the two-state vision, even as the ground around them has shifted.
“I am still a believer,” said Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who led the last round of substantive peace talks with Palestinian leaders before leaving office in 2009.
“There is no other solution. Everything else is almost inevitably a prescription for disaster,” Olmert said.
The two-state approach has guided international diplomacy since the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The interim accords were meant to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, for their state. The land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, made up of pre-1967 Israel and the occupied lands, is populated in roughly equal parts by Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Pollsters predict an eventual Palestinian majority because of higher birth rates.
Proponents of partition say it would create a democratic Israel with a clear Jewish majority in defined borders and enable Palestinians to realize their national aspirations.
Without partition, the default is an apartheid-like reality in which a shrinking Jewish minority controls a growing Arab majority with few political rights. Leading rights groups say an apartheid system is already in place.
Since the Oslo accords 30 years ago, the U.S. and EU have spent billions of dollars on development projects and direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to promote the two-state vision. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell both pledged support for a partition deal.
Yet the West has little to show for its efforts. Peace initiatives led by successive U.S. presidents were derailed by violence, Israeli settlement expansion and mutual distrust.
Hamas, shunned by the West as a terrorist group, has fought four wars against Israel and remains entrenched in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority, which governs semi-autonomous enclaves in the West Bank, is weaker than ever. Israel’s far-right government opposes Palestinian independence and is racing to expand a settler population that has ballooned to over 700,000 people.
Preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and its rivalry with China, the Biden administration has done little more than condemn Israeli settlement plans and call for de-escalation.
Recent opinion polls show that only about one-third of Israelis and Palestinians still favor a two-state solution.
Even some members of the Palestinian Authority, which has the most to gain from independence, have begun to speak publicly about equal rights between the river and the sea, rather than two states.
“The basis for us is ending the occupation, obtaining freedom,” said Mahmoud Aloul, an aide to President Mahmoud Abbas. He said it does not matter if the conflict ends with two states or a single binational state for Israelis and Palestinians.
In academic and human rights circles, many now speak about a “one-state reality” – in which Israel wields overall control over Palestinians. Muasher said given this environment, it is time for the world to focus on Palestinian human rights instead of unrealistic peace plans.
Ines Abdel-Razek, executive director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, an advocacy group, said calls for a two-state solution are “comfortable” for the international community, but insincere.
She said that if the U.S. were serious about peace, it would force Israel to reverse its settlement enterprise. Instead, she said, Washington gives Israel billions in military aid, allows settlement groups to raise funds in the U.S., engages with institutions promoting the annexation of the West Bank and pushes for normalization with other Arab countries.
“The problem is the dire gap and hypocrisy between the discourse and then the policies and practices that are put in place,” she said.
Nearly a generation ago, when EUBAM was established, Palestinian statehood hopes hadn't yet been crushed.
The unit was set up after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. The border monitors helped the Palestinian Authority run the territory’s Rafah crossing with Egypt, while coordinating with Israel. It had 130 workers and helped some 2,700 people cross the border each day.
Florin Bulgariu, the current director of EUBAM, said the initial agreement included plans to help the Palestinians develop a seaport, airport and take over additional border crossings.
Those plans came crashing down when Hamas won Palestinian parliament elections in 2006 and took control of Gaza in 2007, driving out Abbas' forces. The EU shuttered the Rafah operation but still maintains a scaled-down office in Israel.
With a staff of 18 and a budget of 2.5 million Euros a year, EUBAM helps train Palestinian officials in the West Bank to spot counterfeit documents, use X-ray technology and stop drug and weapons smuggling.
“The idea is for the PA to be fully prepared to take over the Rafah crossing point when the time comes,” he said, acknowledging that the odds of this happening anytime soon are nonexistent. Some of this training has bolstered PA border agents in the West Bank as well, he said.
Bulgariu said he is proud of what the mission has accomplished but also frustrated “because I cannot share or implement all what I know.”
Yet he remains committed to the EU’s two-state vision. “This is the only solution that might work in the end, separate borders, everyone with his own business,” he said.
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