Rehearsing for annexation: What’s behind Israel’s raids on West Bank villages?
Israeli soldiers operate during a raid in the Nur Shams camp for Palestinian refugees near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on 28 August 2024
The New Arab reports on 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.
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.