Jordan is concerned that Palestinians will seek refuge in the
Hashemite Kingdom because of intensified Israeli military operations and
extremist settler violence in the West Bank, both of which have been
broadly condemned by the international community, the Qatari-owned
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet reported Friday.
According to the report, Jordanian officials fear that as a result of
Palestinians crossing into Jordan, sky-high regional tensions will
escalate further, leading to increased security risks in the country and
across the region as a whole.
Earlier this month, King Abdullah II warned that Jordan would “not
allow any escalation in the region to be at the expense of Jordanians or
Jordan’s security and safety.”
Echoing the king’s comments, a Jordanian security expert told
Al-Araby that “any displacement of the residents of the West Bank will
pose an existential threat to Jordan and is absolutely rejected by
Jordan and the Palestinian people.”
The outlet also reported concerns among senior Jordanian officials
that by leaving the West Bank, Palestinians could become permanently
displaced, leaving their land empty and at risk of being taken over by
settlers.
This possibility, combined with recent statements
by Israeli government ministers that threaten the status quo on the
Temple Mount, would destroy “any possibility of a political solution
based on the two-state solution, which harms Jordan’s predominant
interest in establishing an independent Palestinian state,” a Jordanian
analyst posited.
People arrive on the Jordanian side of the
Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan on July 19,
2022.
‘We are just like Gaza’
The concerns from Jordan come during an ongoing Israel Defense Forces
operation in the northern West Bank launched early Wednesday. The
military has been operating mostly in the West Bank city of Tulkarem as
well as Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas.
According to Palestinian media, the death toll since the start of the
operation had risen to 20 as of Friday morning. The IDF later confirmed
this tally.
Palestinian residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem
expressed shock and despair Friday at the outcome of an Israeli raid on
their refugee camp: bullet-riddled walls, destroyed homes and piles of
concrete blocks.
“We are another Gaza, especially in the refugee camps,” said Nayef
Alaajmeh, a Nur Shams resident, as he surveyed the damage following a
devastating Israeli raid on the camp that ended late on Thursday.
The IDF initially sent bulldozers to tear up paved streets, sending clouds of dust over the targeted areas.
The army says its ongoing northern West Bank operation is focused on
dismantling a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror network in the
Tulkarem area, as well as in Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas.
AFP footage showed camp residents walking cautiously through streets littered with burnt tires and other debris.
A young Palestinian boy sits amid the
rubble in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the West Bank
following a large-scale Israeli military operation on August 30, 2024.
Municipality workers and residents were already working to salvage what they could.
Many residents compared the devastation to that in Gaza, where nearly
11 months of war have left much of the Palestinian territory destroyed.
“Today, we are just like Gaza, war or no war… (but) we are steadfast
and the people of Gaza are also steadfast,” said Nabil Abu Shala,
another resident of Nur Shams camp.
Fuad Kanuh, who runs a shop on the ground floor of the building where
he lives, said gas cylinders exploded during the raid, apparently hit
by explosives.
An Israeli army armored jeep blocks a road
leading to a hospital in Jenin in the West Bank on August 30, 2024,
where ambulances are checked before reaching the medical facility.
Almost everything in the shop is now charred and blackened by soot,
but that did not stop Kanuh from pulling out what he could — an air
conditioning unit and a television hanging from a wall.
Nur Shams has been a regular target of Israeli raids. Members of
armed groups in the camp no longer wear face masks to conceal their
identities, as they consider themselves to be “on the path to
martyrdom.”
“The occupation forces have destroyed the infrastructure and
vandalized the roads, property and cars,” Abu Mohammed, a fighter in a
local terrorist group, told AFP. “They even demolished and vandalized
the mosque.”
In the Al-Faraa refugee camp in the nearby city of Tubas, Mohammed
Mansur, a member of the central committee of the communist People’s
Party, attended a funeral of four Palestinians killed on Wednesday
during the Israeli raid.
Israeli soldiers operate during a raid in
the Nur Shams camp near the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank on August
28, 2024.
“Here too they have carried out many massacres and bombings to put pressure on the resistance,” Mansur said.
“They want the people to turn against the resistance, but that will
not happen,” he said, as bodies of those killed, wrapped in Palestinian
flags, were laid to rest.
Before their burial, the bodies were carried through the camp in a
funeral procession, with mourners walking on the streets freshly torn up
by Israeli bulldozers.
As the procession advanced, young men brandishing automatic rifles fired into the air.
A Palestinian man drinks a cup of tea amid
the devastation in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the West
Bank following a large-scale Israeli military operation on August 30,
2024.
Hamas: PA supporting IDF
The Qatari-owned New Arab outlet — the English-language edition of
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed — reported Friday that Hamas is accusing the
Palestinian Authority, the body possessing limited sovereignty over
Palestinian civilians in some of the West Bank, of carrying out “an
arrest campaign” against its terror operatives in the West Bank.
According to the report, Hamas claimed that the PA has, in recent
days, carried out targeted arrests of its “resistance fighters,
activists and released prisoners” in Nablus as the terror group faces
off against Israeli forces in other cities.
Hamas also accused the PA of cooperating with and supporting IDF
operations in Jenin and Tulkarem in recent days without providing
evidence. Since its founding 30 years ago, the PA’s security forces have
largely cooperated with Israel in mitigating terror threats.
Hamas commander killed in Jenin
The IDF said Friday afternoon that it had killed 20 gunmen and
detained 17 wanted Palestinians thus far in the West Bank operation,
adding that troops have also destroyed dozens of explosive devices and
seized many weapons.
The ongoing operation also saw the killing on Friday of Wissam Hazem,
the commander of Hamas’s military wing in Jenin, according to an
earlier joint statement from the IDF, Shin Bet security agency and
police.
The IDF said troops spotted a cell of gunmen in the Jenin area town of Zababdeh. Hazem was among the suspects in the car.
Undercover Border Police officers opened fire at the car, killing
Hazem, while the other two gunmen fled, the statement said. A short
while later, a drone strike killed the pair.
The military released drone footage showing the moment the Border
Police officers ambushed Hazem and the drone strikes carried out a short
while later.
Police released a separate clip from body cameras on the officers,
showing them blocking the car that Hazem was in and exchanging fire with
him.
According to Israel, Hazem was involved in numerous shooting and bombing attacks and was advancing additional attacks.
The other two gunmen, killed by the drone, were named by the IDF as Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer.
The military said they were Hamas members working under Hazem and
were also involved in shooting attacks, including against Israeli
communities near the West Bank security barrier.
Inside the car and on the bodies of the terror operatives, the IDF
says it recovered assault rifles, handguns and other equipment, adding
that no troops were hurt in the incident.
Weapons found by the IDF following clashes
and a drone strike in the town of Zababdeh near the West Bank city of
Jenin, August 30, 2024
Early Thursday, Israeli forces killed five Palestinian gunmen who
were hiding in a mosque in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, including the
commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s local wing in the Nur
Shams camp, the military said.
Another founding member of Islamic Jihad’s local wing in Tulkarem was detained.
The large operation, involving the Kfir Brigade, the Duvdevan
Commando Unit, combat engineers and Border Police, was expected to last
at least several days, military sources said Wednesday.
The ongoing operation was focused on dismantling a Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror network in the Tulkarem area, as well
as in Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas.
While the army has said it has seen a relative decline in terror
coming from the northern West Bank in recent months, it has also seen
continued attempts by terror operatives to launch attacks.
After a series of smaller operations in the northern West Bank, the
IDF decided to launch a more extensive operation, targeting three areas
at once — Jenin, Tulkarem and Far’a — where terror operatives were seen
as operating together, military sources said.
Troops of the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv
Reconnaissance Unit are seen operating in the West Bank city of
Tulkarem, August 28, 2024.
The large-scale operation was also launched in part following an intended suicide bombing in Tel Aviv earlier this month.
The IDF has carried out several drone strikes amid the operation. In
the past 10 months, the IDF has carried out more than 60 airstrikes in
the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters and fighter jets.
A Border Police officer was lightly hurt and an IDF soldier was
moderately wounded amid the operations on Wednesday and Thursday.
People check a burnt car in the small town
of Zababdeh, southeast of Jenin in the West Bank on August 30, 2024,
following an Israeli army raid.
British concerns
The British government said Friday it was “deeply concerned” by the
ongoing West Bank operation, warning that the risk of instability is
serious and that there is an urgent need for de-escalation.
“We continue to call on Israeli authorities to exercise restraint,
adhere to international law, and clamp down on the actions of those who
seek to inflame tensions,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office
said in a statement.
“We recognize Israel’s need to defend itself against security
threats, but we are deeply worried by the methods Israel has employed
and by reports of civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian
infrastructure.”
The spokesperson added that the UK “strongly condemns settler
violence,” and that it is in no one’s interest for further conflict and
instability to spread in the West Bank.
A young Palestinian boy stands in front of a
bullet and shrapnel-riddled wall in the small town of Zababdeh,
southeast of Jenin in the West Bank on August 30, 2024, following an
Israeli army raid.
Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have soared since October 7,
when terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led
attack, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians
across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry, more than
670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says
the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire,
rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security
personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West
Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes
with terror operatives in the West Bank.
No comments:
Post a Comment