by Gassem Muaddi, Published on Mondoweiss, January 28, 2025
The Israeli army is launching offensives in the northern West Bank as Israeli politicians, emboldened by Donald Trump, seek to realize their dreams of annexation.
Israel continued its offensive in the occupied West Bank for the seventh day in a row on Tuesday, concentrating on the northern city of Jenin and continuing to expand to other areas. As part of the same offensive, Israeli forces continued to impose checkpoints and barriers across the West Bank, cutting off Palestinian communities from one another and preventing Palestinians from moving freely in the territory.
In Jenin, Israeli forces continue to raid the refugee camp in the city, demolishing and detonating several homes and forcing residents to leave the camp. Israeli forces also expanded their operations to other parts of Jenin, raiding the nearby towns of Qabatiya and Burqin. In Qabatiya, west of Jenin, an Israeli airstrike targeted a car and killed two Palestinian men on Friday. In Burqin, south of the city, a two-year-old girl was killed by Israeli fire inside her family’s house during a ground raid on the town.
“Access to the camp continues to be blocked, and many families left the camp,” a resident of Jenin who asked not to be named told Mondoweiss. “The occupation army is stationed inside the camp now, and we can hear bulldozers and explosions occasionally from outside of the camp, and we see smoke rising from inside it,” they described. “The occupation forces demolished several houses on its outer edge, especially in the eastern part, and the families who left either rented apartments in the city or went to stay over with relatives, but some have nowhere to go.”
In Jenin city, local associations opened a shelter center for Palestinians who left the camp and had no place to stay. According to the camp’s services committee, some 80% of the camp’s population has left. The United Nations agency for the relief of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that it has been unable to deliver its services in the camp.
Israel has killed 16 Palestinians since the beginning of its offensive on Jenin and the northern West Bank a week ago, while wounding dozens more. The Israeli army said in a statement on Monday that it had killed 15 Palestinian fighters and arrested 40 others while confiscating weapons.
The Israeli army expanded its offensive to the city of Tulkarem at the beginning of the week, targeting the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps. An Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian men in Tulkarem city, both of whom were identified as members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. Israeli strikes also wounded 20 others in Tulkarem.
“The occupation offensive…has destroyed several houses and leveled infrastructure,” Nuhad Shawish, the head of the Popular Services Committee in Nur Shams, told Mondoweiss.
“This attack is different from the previous ones because the occupation forces are deliberately trying to empty the refugee camps of their population one neighborhood at a time,” Shawish continued. “Hundreds already have been forced out of their homes in the Tulkarem camp,” said Shawish.
“The [Israeli] occupation forces also raided the Jamal Abdel Nasser square in the center city and destroyed the external stairs of the Tulkarem courthouse,” he went on. “The offensive seems to be only expanding with no end in sight, and we fear that it will extend to other parts outside of Tulkarem city, just like what is happening in Jenin,” he pointed out. “Displaced families are staying over relatives and in local associations and mosques, but we fear that their number will increase in the coming days,” he added.
Draconian closures and preventing freedom of movement
Meanwhile, since the ceasefire took hold in Gaza, Israeli forces have continued to impose severe and arbitrary closures across the West Bank, erecting new checkpoints and barriers in a dramatic increase of restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the territory. As a result, Palestinians have been avoiding movement outside of their towns or governorates unless absolutely necessary, to avoid getting stuck at checkpoints for hours. On Sunday, Israeli forces closed checkpoints and iron gates recently installed around Ramallah for most of the day, preventing many Palestinians from reaching work.
“Movement has become extremely difficult and risky, not only because of closures, but because the occupation soldiers have become more aggressive and might arrest or harass us for no reason at checkpoints,” a resident of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, told Mondoweiss.
“Now we have to keep an eye on the metal gate on the road to Ramallah, which blocks six villages from accessing the city. It might open for half an hour and then close again, so we prefer not to risk traveling unless we really need to,” they said.
“This same distance between Deir Jarir and Ramallah used to take twenty minutes by car, and we traveled it at any time of day or night before October 7, but now the main road has been completely closed, and the only road, which takes up to 40 minutes, has become subject to arbitrary closures.”
“On the other side, at the exit of Taybeh [village], just south of Deir Jarir, the occupation army installed another gate on the only route to Jericho, which is supposed to be 30 minutes away by car, and it also closes for indefinite periods of time every day.”
Two weeks ago, on the first day of the ceasefire, Palestinians who were leaving Ramallah in the afternoon to travel north to Nablus reported that the journey took them several hours due to arbitrary checkpoint closures by Israeli forces. The car ride from Ramallah to Nablus usually takes only one hour. On the same day, a 45-year-old Palestinian woman died of a heart attack at an Israeli checkpoint northeast of Hebron while she was trying to reach the hospital.
The increasing Israeli stranglehold on civilian life in the West Bank comes amid declarations by Israeli officials of plans for further escalations. On Tuesday, the Israeli news website, Walla, reported that the Israeli army is preparing to expand its operations and is studying the possibility of extending them to the entire West Bank. Israeli far-right politicians have been pushing for a wholesale offensive in the West Bank since before October 7, 2023.
Earlier in January, Israel’s Finance Minister and co-minister in Israel’s war ministry, Bezalel Smotrich, called for Jenin and Nablus to “look like Jabalia,” referencing the Palestinian city and refugee camp that was leveled in the northern Gaza Strip after an ethnic cleansing campaign by the Israeli army in late 2024. Smotrich voted against the ceasefire deal in Gaza and continues to oppose it, calling for a resumption of the war after the end of the first stage of the deal. However, he has not resigned from the coalition cabinet led by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, becoming a key member of Netanyahu’s cabinet and hence preventing its collapse.
Analysts have speculated that the current Israeli escalation in the West Bank is a way of appeasing Smotrich in exchange for accepting the ceasefire deal. However, Smotrich has been pushing for the full annexation of the West Bank since 2015, making key changes to the Israeli army’s administration of the occupied territory in preparation for extending Israeli judicial authority to the West Bank and weakening the Palestinian Authority. In late 2024, Israel confiscated 24,000 dunams of land, 20,000 of which are in the northern Jordan Valley. It was the largest such land grab in 30 years.
Last weekend, a special committee in the Israeli Knesset approved a bill into the legislation process that would allow Israeli settlers to purchase Palestinian land freely in the West Bank. The change would empower Israeli settler organizations to claim property in the West Bank, similar to how they purchase land in East Jerusalem, often through dubious means.
As the ceasefire in Gaza progresses with the possibility of continuing after the end of its first phase, the West Bank braces for more difficult days. Israeli far-right politicians are unsatisfied with the result of 15 months of genocide in Gaza, feeling emboldened by the complete support from the Trump administration to realize their maximalist ambitions in the West Bank.
*Featured Image: People inspect the rubble of a house where two Palestinian militants were killed during an Israeli raid in Burqin village near Jenin in the occupied West Bank on January 23, 2025. (Photo by Mohammed Nasser apaimages)
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss. Follow him on Twitter/X at @QassaMMuaddi.