Netanyahu orders to close the West Bank after a Palestinian attack
The army kills two Palestinians who had fired at a group of soldiers at a military checkpoint near an illegal colony
BarcelonaIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a "total lockdown" of the occupied West Bank on Friday after the Israeli army repelled an attack in the city of Hebron. Soldiers killed two armed Palestinians who had attacked a battalion near the illegal Telem settlement. The men fired from a vehicle at soldiers at a military checkpoint. The attack and the blockade measures come in a context of growing tension in the Palestinian territory, where Israeli settlers and soldiers carry out violent attacks against Palestinian communities. The olive harvest season is particularly violent, with five days left until the legislative elections in Israel, where Netanyahu is fighting for his continuity in office after nearly a quarter of a century dominating the country's political life.
The Minister of National Security, the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir, reacted to the shooting by demanding that Israel assume full control of the West Bank, where the Israeli government promotes the construction of numerous settlements, which are illegal under international law. "We must act before it is too late. The Palestinian Authority must be dismantled and demilitarized, and its terrorist infrastructure completely eliminated," Ben-Gvir stated in a communique. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) celebrated the attack against the military position, which they described as a response to the Israeli army's operations, settler violence, and the war in Gaza, and they urged for an intensification of clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers.
Israeli raids
Israeli forces arrested 36 Palestinians on Thursday during various raids across the West Bank, as attacks against Palestinian farmers and their lands intensify in the midst of the olive harvest season. The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission has documented 17 pogroms perpetrated on Thursday by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinian farmers and their lands during the olive harvest. The incidents have been recorded in several West Bank governorates, including Hebron, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah and Al-Bireh, Jenin, and Salfit. The attacks have included assaults against farmers, impediments to accessing their lands, theft of crops and agricultural equipment, damage and arson of olive trees, as well as arrests, threats at gunpoint, and shots fired with live ammunition. Israeli attacks against Palestinian farmers have drawn international attention and sparked condemnation. On Wednesday, Democratic candidate for the United States Congress Brad Lander was briefly detained by the Israeli army while volunteering in the olive harvest with Palestinian farmers in the West Bank; last week, a French mayor and a journalist from The Washington Post.
