Israeli army stops victims of drone strike in West Bank from reaching hospital
Relatives of Palestinians killed and wounded in an Israeli attack said forces prevented them from reaching a hospital and stopped ambulances from entering
The New Arab Staff
26 December, 2024
Palestinians mourned their relatives killed in the Israeli attack on Tulkarm [Getty]
The Israeli army stopped the victims of a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm from reaching a hospital, as they blocked off roads and carried out another military operation, relatives of the family said.
According to Haaretz, two Palestinians, identified as Khawla Abdullah, 53, and Bara’a Al-Sheikh Ali, 21, were killed in the drone attack with the Israeli army later admitting they were not the intended targets.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health later announced that three others were killed and nine wounded, including a 10-year-old boy in the attack. One person was also killed in the nearby Nur Shams camp.
Despite the injuries, the Israeli army stopped ambulances from entering the site and put the area under a complete lockdown.
According to reports, Abdullah’s relative said she was at home when she was killed.
"She was in the kitchen and there was an attack aimed at some youths…as she ran to her grandfather’s house she was wounded in the head and killed," her relative said, adding that all the walls of the home were caved in following the strike.
"We weren’t able to take her out of the camp for two hours because of the lockdown. Ambulances weren’t allowed to come in" they added, noting that it meant Abdullah was also not be able to be buried immediately.
Enforced lockdown
Others said it took at least one hour to be able to be evacuated in an ambulance.
Ali was sitting in a room at home with her daughter, mother and other relatives when the strike hit, leaving her with shrapnel in the head.
Reports said that medics fought to save her life but she was pronounced dead later that evening.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces have been carrying out a large-scale military onslaught on the city for several days.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society also said on Wednesday that its crews treated an elderly man who was wounded by shrapnel in the face, transferring him to hospital. Paramedic Ahmed Hatta was also wounded while carrying out his duties in the area.
Local Palestinian media added Israeli forces were stationed at Tulkarm's entrances while bulldozers destroyed infrastructure. Some Israeli snipers were also stationed on rooftops
Israeli violence and raids in the West Bank have intensified since the war on Gaza began on 7 October last year.
From January 2023 to November 2024, at least 968 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The figure includes at least 210 children. Thousands of others have been detained since October 2023.
Relatives of Palestinians killed and wounded in an Israeli attack said forces prevented them from reaching a hospital and stopped ambulances from entering
The New Arab Staff
26 December, 2024
Palestinians mourned their relatives killed in the Israeli attack on Tulkarm [Getty]
The Israeli army stopped the victims of a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm from reaching a hospital, as they blocked off roads and carried out another military operation, relatives of the family said.
According to Haaretz, two Palestinians, identified as Khawla Abdullah, 53, and Bara’a Al-Sheikh Ali, 21, were killed in the drone attack with the Israeli army later admitting they were not the intended targets.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health later announced that three others were killed and nine wounded, including a 10-year-old boy in the attack. One person was also killed in the nearby Nur Shams camp.
Despite the injuries, the Israeli army stopped ambulances from entering the site and put the area under a complete lockdown.
According to reports, Abdullah’s relative said she was at home when she was killed.
"She was in the kitchen and there was an attack aimed at some youths…as she ran to her grandfather’s house she was wounded in the head and killed," her relative said, adding that all the walls of the home were caved in following the strike.
"We weren’t able to take her out of the camp for two hours because of the lockdown. Ambulances weren’t allowed to come in" they added, noting that it meant Abdullah was also not be able to be buried immediately.
Enforced lockdown
Others said it took at least one hour to be able to be evacuated in an ambulance.
Ali was sitting in a room at home with her daughter, mother and other relatives when the strike hit, leaving her with shrapnel in the head.
Reports said that medics fought to save her life but she was pronounced dead later that evening.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli forces have been carrying out a large-scale military onslaught on the city for several days.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society also said on Wednesday that its crews treated an elderly man who was wounded by shrapnel in the face, transferring him to hospital. Paramedic Ahmed Hatta was also wounded while carrying out his duties in the area.
Local Palestinian media added Israeli forces were stationed at Tulkarm's entrances while bulldozers destroyed infrastructure. Some Israeli snipers were also stationed on rooftops
Israeli violence and raids in the West Bank have intensified since the war on Gaza began on 7 October last year.
From January 2023 to November 2024, at least 968 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The figure includes at least 210 children. Thousands of others have been detained since October 2023.
These systems include watchtowers and mechanisms that will fire live ammunition from a distance without taking into account the safety of the Palestinians.
Fayha Shalash
West Bank
26 December, 2024
THE NEW ARAB
A Palestinian flag flies in the village of Beita south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank near an Israeli watchtower erected in the illegal Israeli Eviatar settlement outpost on 19 October 2024. [Getty]
The Israeli army is preparing to deploy dystopic technological security systems in the occupied West Bank, as its Israeli military and political quarters are concerned it will turn into a major battlefield.
Israeli Army Radio said last week that the army recently began equipping itself with dozens of technological systems to deploy at the entrances to settlements and key points under the pretext of what it called "preventing infiltration".
These systems include watchtowers and mechanisms that will fire live ammunition from a distance without taking into account the safety of the Palestinians in case of technological errors.
The revelation of this move comes in conjunction with the continuation of systematic Israeli army raids on Palestinian cities and towns in the occupied West Bank, in addition to the ceaseless Israeli settler attacks.
This also comes in light of official Israeli statements calling for annexing the occupied West Bank and expanding illegal settlements there, in addition to calls for treating the territory 'like the Gaza Strip'.
Tightening the screws
Anti-settlement activist Bashar Qaryouti told The New Arab that Israel is working by all means to "tighten the screws" on the West Bank by placing gates at the entrances to Palestinian villages and installing surveillance cameras that operate via lasers, and it also continues to photograph the towns by drones.
The Israeli army is attempting to monitoring all Palestinian movements and finding out any information through technological tools, which has become effective, and the details of the person coming to the checkpoint are known from a distance, which compounds a state of confusion and tension for the occupied territories communities, according to him.
"Installing surveillance devices is not new. Most of the road junctions are planted with cameras that enable the Israeli army to know all the information necessary to monitor us," he added. "This security system, which the Israeli occupation relies on, could lead to a defect in identifying the target and a security measure being taken against someone who is not a target, and this creates a state of terror among the Palestinians."
'To avoid prosecution'
The system, called "Roeh-Yoreh" (see-fire), is an advanced weapons system developed by Rafael Combat Systems, and consists of a tower with advanced surveillance and a lethal firing system remotely controlled from command centres.
Since this system entered the Israeli army's arsenal in 2008, it has been used exclusively in the Gaza Strip, where it was deployed along the security fence east of the Strip, and operated by spotters to target Palestinians who approach the security fence.
According to the Israeli army, the 636th Reconnaissance Unit of the West Bank Division will operate the systems there in the context of Israeli fears of a security escalation in the region, including the possibility of carrying out large-scale armed operations on settlements.
An expert on Israeli affairs, Suleiman Bisharat, told TNA that Israel's use of lethal technologies is an expression that the concept of life under the Israeli occupation doesn't stop except when death occurs for everything that is non-Israeli or non-Jewish.
According to his analysis, Israel, as an occupying state, has come to realise that there is a weakness in the human elements of the Israeli army members and their skills, and this is perhaps the result of the fact that there is no longer a real, solid conviction in terms of the ideological dimension of what the Israeli army is doing.
"Therefore, there is a search for tools that support the human component. We saw this during the war on the Gaza Strip, how Israel relied on artificial intelligence programs and technology in many places because it no longer trusts the soldier as a human being, particularly their ability to protect themselves or the country," he said.
Israel suffers from the conflict between the concept of rights, principles and values and the practice on the ground in all the violations it carries out, according to him.
For this reason, it is always looking for lethal tools via technology to protect itself and protect its soldiers from legal prosecutions, which have become one of the basic dilemmas that the Israeli army faces the international courts.
"Israel's focus on creating all technological means based on the principle of killing is a reflection of the mentality that has begun to spread greatly and expand within Israel and which has turned into a state of fascism practised by the Israeli army against the Palestinians who don’t possess any of the simplest tools of self-defence," he concluded
Rehearsing for annexation: What's behind Israel's raids on West Bank villages?
In-depth: Israel has increased violent raids on Palestinian towns and villages, with residents fearing that the military is 'rehearsing' for annexation.
The New Arab (From the Arabic Edition)
17 December, 2024
In recent months, Palestinians say there has been a dramatic increase in aggressive and extended Israeli raids on towns and villages across rural areas in the occupied West Bank - especially those close to illegal Israeli settlements.
This has prompted concerns among residents over whether Israel is rehearsing for long-proposed plans to annex and impose its sovereignty onto the West Bank – as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly threatened.
The military incursions have been carried out in Palestinian areas classified as Area B under the Oslo Accords, which are supposedly under the civil administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and in Area C, which has been under Israeli administration since the 1993 Accords.
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In-depthZena Tahhan
Besieged and paralysed
At dawn on Sunday 24 November, Israeli forces entered the village of Al-Mughayyir, in the countryside east of Ramallah.
They imposed a tight siege after sealing off every entrance to the village except one, completely severing the village from its surroundings, explained community activist Kazem Hajj Mohammed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister edition.
He said Israeli forces had stormed one of the houses and turned it into a military barracks and base - in which soldiers then carried out field "interrogations" with residents.
Meanwhile, another group of soldiers raided other houses in the village amid intermittent clashes with the inhabitants.
The siege lasted two days and brought life in Al-Mughayyir to a complete standstill. The schools were forced to close for both days, and many of the locals couldn't go to work due to the closure of the roads out of the village and the presence of armed Israeli soldiers in the streets.
The justification Israeli forces had given for the raid and siege was due to young people "shining laser beams" at settlers' cars on the bypass road next to the village, said Hajj Mohammed.
Military barracks
Just five days earlier on 19 November, Burqa village, north of Nablus in the West Bank, was subjected to a 24-hour military operation during which around 50 houses were raided, and dozens of local men interrogated by Israeli soldiers. Some were beaten so badly during the interrogations they had to be hospitalised.
Anti-settlement activist Sami Douglas, who lives in Burqa, described what happened as "a mini military operation".
Burqa was transformed into a "barracks" for the Israeli soldiers, he says, who spread out in its neighbourhoods and streets and occupied several buildings.
Israeli settlers gather near the fields of Palestinian farmers in the village of Burqa in the occupied West Bank on 20 October 2024. [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty]
They also blocked off the road into the village, preventing anyone from entering or exiting. Douglas explains how teams of 7-10 soldiers raided one house after another, destroying residents' belongings and furniture under the pretext of conducting searches, as well as physically and verbally assaulting residents.
In his view, Israel's actions are part of a set of systematic policies which aim to establish deterrence through terrorising Palestinians.
This was the aim of the threats and warnings issued by Israeli officers to parents and teachers, which stated that if their children or pupils threw stones at Israeli army vehicles or settlers' cars when they passed near the village, the "punishment would be severe".
Establishing a new reality
Some view the increase in these violent and disruptive raids as an Israeli attempt to "pre-emptively deter" any acts by Palestinians in the case they come into contact with Israeli settlers - such as throwing stones at their cars as they pass close to Palestinian villages.
However, others believe Israel's motive in the uptick of aggressive raids is to train new recruits to mount incursions into residential areas and "deal" with Palestinian residents. They see this as coinciding with the growing conversation in Israel around imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
Douglas believes Israel is carrying out such regular - almost daily - incursions to establish a new reality, whereby Palestinians are forced to live constantly under threat and with the possibility that the Israeli army could appear at any moment and turn their homes into military barracks, paralysing life in their villages.
In-depthJessica Buxbaum
He says the objective is to create a psychological state among Palestinians where they feel the occupation is present all the time and in every place - whether in their homes, streets, mosques or schools.
"We have got to the point that the sheer number of raids has left Palestinians indifferent - as though they are just part of daily life," he adds.
He believes this policy is having a deep impact on the psyche of Palestinians: as soon as people wake in the morning they reflexively check their phones for any news on raids or arrests.
Terror tactics
In the south of Nablus governorate lies the village of Madama, which experienced two days of terror when Israeli forces invaded on 21 November, closed down the village, and imposed a curfew on residents.
Abdullah Ziyadeh, head of Madama village council, said that the residents awoke that morning to over 300 soldiers streaming into the village, occupying rooftops with snipers and raising the Israeli flag on top of the buildings.
A Palestinian man inspects a car, reportedly burnt by Israeli settlers, in Al-Mughayyir village on 26 May 2023. [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty]More than 80 percent of the houses in the village were raided and ransacked, and Madama residents reported that Israeli soldiers were taking anyone who had the Telegram app on their phone for interrogation, a practice that has become common across the West Bank since 7 October 2023.
Since then, simply having Telegram appears to have become tantamount to an offence - with many Palestinians tortured for having the app on their phones due to the widespread belief among Israeli soldiers that Palestinians used Telegram to follow the unfolding of Hamas's Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on 7 October 2023.
A rehearsal for what's next
Specialist in Israeli affairs Azzam Abu al-Adas says what is happening in the countryside of the West Bank may be seen as a "rehearsal" for the coming phase - in light of Smotrich's repeated statements about annexing the West Bank.
Abu al-Adas says that this decision is starting to be applied - with the imposition of a new de facto reality "where occupation troops maintain a permanent presence in residential areas".
He points out that the change is that these raids are not a response to lone incidents, like stone throwing, but constitute a deliberate policy aiming at "sending a message" to the Palestinian community, both in the rural villages and urban areas.
The message is that the lives of Israeli settlers are worth more than those of Palestinians by all metrics.
The objective in making these violations part of daily routine - with the army sometimes deliberately carrying out incursions without a clear reason - is to demonstrate its permanent presence and assert dominance over the daily lives of Palestinians, he says.
This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.
Translated by Rose Chacko
This article is taken from our Arabic sister publication, Al-Araby Al Jadeed and mirrors the source's original editorial guidelines and reporting policies. Any requests for correction or comment will be forwarded to the original authors and editors
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