Palestinians forced into lockdown as Israel’s West Bank assault continues

Save the Children says Palestinians are sheltering at home as Israeli raids injure dozens and lead to mass arrests.

Entire Palestinian communities have been forced into lockdown in parts of the occupied West Bank, a human rights group warns, as the Israeli military continues to carry out wide-scale, deadly raids in the territory.

Save the Children said on Friday that families in the northern West Bank have been forced to shelter inside their homes due to the fear of violence from the Israeli military, which launched an intensified operation earlier this week.

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The lockdowns are “keeping children out of school, jeopardising family incomes and increasing risk of physical violence and child detention from the Israeli military”, the child rights group said.

Israeli troops laid siege to large swaths of the northeastern Tubas governorate, starting on Wednesday, and carried out a series of major raids in other cities and towns across the occupied West Bank, including Jenin.

Israeli forces have injured dozens of people in the Tubas area since the raids began, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Friday, while more than 160 others have been detained.

Israel has said the operation aims to root out Palestinian armed groups, but residents say the military has carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, blocked journalists and ambulances, and damaged infrastructure.

An incident that was caught on camera in Jenin on Thursday, showing Israeli forces killing two unarmed Palestinian men as they attempted to surrender, has also drawn widespread condemnation.

‘Systematic assault’

Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have faced a surge of Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the nearby Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 70,000 people since October 2023.

Israeli army and settler attacks have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began, according to the United Nations.

The northern West Bank has been particularly hard-hit, with about 32,000 residents of several refugee camps forced out of their homes since January, and prevented by Israel from returning.

The Israeli military has also carried out wide-scale home demolitions, in what rights groups and UN officials have said is a campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians.

Ameer, who works with a Save the Children partner organisation in the West Bank, said this week’s raids in the Tubas governorate constitute “a systematic assault by Israeli forces and a continuation of the Israeli government’s collective punishment policy”.

“The operation is cutting off children from the key services and supplies they rely on and need, including education and health services. Every child in these areas is being denied the right to an education,” Ameer said in a statement.

Attacks on Gaza

Meanwhile, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on Gaza, despite a United States-brokered truce with Hamas that came into effect last month.

On Friday, several Israeli attacks were reported near southern Gaza’s Khan Younis and Rafah, and an Israeli drone attack killed a Palestinian in Bani Suheila, a town east of Khan Younis, according to a local medical report.

At least 347 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the truce began on October 10, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health in the enclave.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, also said on Friday that 535 Israeli violations had been documented since the ceasefire took hold.

Al-Thawabta said in a statement shared on Telegram that the flow of aid into the war-battered territory remains far below what was agreed upon in the truce.

“The [Israeli] occupation has allowed only 9,930 trucks to enter Gaza out of the nearly 28,000 requested – a mere 35 percent – thus turning aid into a tool of war used for pressure rather than a legal or humanitarian obligation,” he said.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate, and the Israeli aggression has destroyed infrastructure and essential services.”