The Israeli military killed three Palestinian military commanders, including one from Hamas' Qassam Brigades and two from Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and a mother and her son during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Monday, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.
Several army convoys and bulldozers also stormed the Tulkarem refugee camp, where the five were killed, destroying homes, markets and entire neighbourhoods during the attack.
Like the rest of the West Bank, Tulkarem has been subject to Israeli army raids and settler attacks that intensified following the return of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to head a far-right government in late 2022. The devastation wrought by these raids was further intensified following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
Israel maintains its near-daily raids are necessary to capture Hamas cells and ensure Israeli security, but critics say the incursions are exacerbating the root causes fueling armed resistance, particularly the decades-long Israeli occupation, which was declared illegal last week by the International Court of Justice.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel has killed 203 people in the West Bank between January and June 6 this year, which is 75 more people killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers than in the same period last year.
Activists and experts believe Israel is exaggerating the threat of what it calls “terrorism” to justify increasing violence, which is leading to mass displacement and the expansion of illegal settlements.
Here's everything you need to know about the escalation of violence as a result of operations in the West Bank.
How many raids have there been and who were they directed against?
Israel has been carrying out military raids in the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis, since before the current war in Gaza. Israel claims the raids are carried out in the name of security, but local residents say they serve little purpose other than to remind them of the realities of living under occupation.
Cities such as Jenin, Tulkarem and the Nur Shams refugee camp are frequently attacked and shootouts with Palestinian gunmen are common.
Shadi Abdullah, an activist from the Tulkarem refugee camp, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli military routinely fires rockets at residential areas, razes schools and hospitals, cuts electricity and kills or injures civilians during almost every attack.
These same tactics have been widely spread across the West Bank and in particular in Jenin, where much of the camp has been reduced to rubble. Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the camp during one such raid in May 2022.
“The Israelis do not distinguish between resistance fighters and civilians,” Abdullah told Al Jazeera.
“They are also trying to make these areas uninhabitable so that Palestinians migrate from one Palestinian city to another… it is a form of forced displacement,” he added.
Who are the Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank?
Israel has long said it is targeting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions in the West Bank, as well as new independent armed groups that have emerged in recent years.
It recently arrested several Birzeit University students who it said were planning a “significant terrorist attack” against Israeli forces or settlers, according to Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency tasked with monitoring and thwarting domestic threats.
“There was talk that student movements were going to start something in the West Bank, but the Israelis don’t care whether it is popular resistance or armed resistance. They are not interested in any escalation,” said Tasame Ramadan, a Palestinian activist from the West Bank city of Nablus.
“[Israel] wants [Palestinians] “They want them to feel controlled and to feel fear for their lives,” he added.
Tahani Mustafa, senior analyst on Palestine at the International Crisis Group (ICG), explained that many young people take up arms or join armed factions to protect themselves and their communities from settler violence (which is increasing without much response from the military) and army incursions.
“Whether it is student movements or armed groups, there are pockets of resistance in the West Bank and the idea that they are affiliated with Hamas or backed by Iran is [something Israel plays up] because it fits into the notions of what counts as legitimate violence,” he said.
“Frankly, it doesn’t play well for the Western narrative if they learn that most of these fighters are simply disillusioned and disenfranchised Fatah voters.”
Fatah is a major Palestinian faction that controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), the entity charged with governing most of the West Bank.
Are settlers involved?
Yes, and often.
Jewish settlers constantly attack entire Palestinian villages in their attempt to expand the territory they hold in the West Bank. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank consider the land to be an integral part of the land of Israel and the Palestinians to be an obstacle in their way.
Although settlers periodically carry out attacks against Palestinians without any prior justification, they engage in particularly aggressive raids when their own settlements are attacked.
In April, an Israeli teenager was found dead in the occupied West Bank, triggering a wave of armed attacks and vigilante groups by illegal settlers. The violence left a 17-year-old Palestinian boy dead and dozens injured.
“The settlers are always protected by the army,” Abdullah said.
He added that security forces and settlers invoke “terrorism” as a justification for attacking Palestinians, displacing them from their villages and stealing their land.
Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority protect its constituents?
Because it does not want to alter the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian Authority was born out of that agreement, in which then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shook hands with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the lawn of the US White House.
The agreements were supposed to pave the way for a Palestinian state, but in reality they only resulted in the establishment of close security coordination between the PA and Israel.
Moreover, the agreements effectively shackled the Palestinian Authority, Tahani said. As a governing body, it cannot protect its citizens from Israeli soldiers and militant settlers who violate its jurisdiction in large parts of the West Bank.
“Never mind fighting Israeli settlers or soldiers, the PA doesn’t even make arrests,” Tahani told Al Jazeera. “The PA unfortunately has no jurisdiction over Israelis… so what are they doing?” [Palestinians] “Do you suppose you should do that?”
