You cannot understand the war in Gaza – where the international press cannot enter – without visiting the West Bank and visiting Hebron in particular. The citizens of the Strip who have seen their homes and lives destroyed are just as Palestinian as those in the West Bank, and many have family ties to both enclaves. The two occupied territories are separated by less than a hundred kilometers. The cities of Gaza now destroyed by Israeli bombs were like those of the West Bank: chaotic cities in development and full of contrasts, like those of any Arab country.
There are streets in Ramallah where the concentration of Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, BMW or other high-end cars collides with the poverty of its refugee camp; in Nablus or Bethlehem there are fee-paying schools, modern shopping centers and fashionable cafes; in Jenin there is even a luxury hotel built by an emigrant who made his fortune in the Emirates.
These are realities unknown to most Israelis, who have never visited Palestine and who have gone from mistrust of Palestinians to fear and hatred after the terrorist attack by Hamas, an Islamist movement they equate with all the Palestinian population. However, despite the fact that the armed arms of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other political formations operate in the West Bank, you do not see armed civilians on the streets, unlike what happens in Israel.
At all check points to enter the West Bank from Israel there is a large red sign three meters high warning Israelis that crossing the checkpoint poses a “danger to their lives”. Even so, some 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – in 279 settlements, which are illegal according to international law, and half of them are also illegal according to Israeli regulations, which only recognize 127, since the other 152 are the so-called outposts, outposts or wild colonies, which the ultranationalists keep installing.
The number of settlers was close to 200,000 before the Oslo Accords of 1993, which divided the West Bank into three areas: A, under the exclusive control of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA); B, governed by the ANP but with Israeli military control; and C, managed exclusively by Israel. Today, more than 60% of the occupied territory is Area C, which has been growing as settlements have increased with roads and access forbidden to Palestinians. Now, in addition, military checkpoints have multiplied inside areas A and B, with roads and accesses cut off without prior warning.
One of the fears expressed by the international community is that Israel will take advantage of the Gaza war to emulate the West Bank model and confine Gazans who survive the slaughter to a smaller space than the current occupied territory, where there were no settlers, already which were withdrawn after the Oslo accords. A proposal that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu sent these days to the Arab countries with which it maintains relations went in this direction, with the creation of “buffering areas”.
As Palestinians watch on television the slaughter of their compatriots in Gaza, tension rises in the West Bank, where every day the army makes raids to carry out arrests, most of them preventive, to remove from circulation those they have registered as sympathizers of Hamas or the Jihad, who “have done nothing”, as the president of the Society of Palestinian Prisoners, Abdallah Zgari, explains to La Vanguardia in Ramallah.
This association puts the number of detainees at 3,660 since October 7; with 130 minors. There are nearly 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
In this low-intensity war in the West Bank, military incursions cause deaths almost every day, most in one of the 19 refugee camps where bulldozers precede soldiers, razing homes and leaving the urban fabric in tatters.
The army and the settlers – to a lesser extent – have already killed 265 Palestinians since the attack by Hamas, 479 since the beginning of the year – a hundred, minors -, the bloodiest since the second intifada.
The actions of the troops are often recorded on video, such as the murder of an 8-year-old boy in Jenin on November 29, who was unarmed and did not pose any threat to the soldiers. However, no judicial investigation is open.
The Médecins Sans Frontières organization is preparing for a healthcare scenario similar to that of Gaza in the West Bank and has incorporated staff with experience in armed conflicts, such as Enrique García, coordinator of this organization in Hebron. “We are preparing for the scenario that we see most likely to happen in this area, a total blockade very similar to what is happening now in Jenin, but harder,” he told La Vanguardia at the organization’s headquarters in Hebron. “We are preparing for the entire area of ??the West Bank to be blocked”, adds García, who acknowledges that it is an approach of maxims.
“The idea is to have a health structure to respond to a humanitarian emergency without the need for external support for several months”, he adds, explaining that his plan is based on “establishing medical islands that can communicate internally”.
Hebron is an area full of settlements, even in the city, the only one in the West Bank that is divided, with a check point in the center to access a neighborhood where a thousand Jews and 35,000 Arabs live, subject to a ferry control.
In one of the settlements close to the center lives the Minister of Security, the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“The colonists are increasingly aggressive, there are conflicts every day,” says García. “They are patrolling the areas all the time, scolding the Palestinians”, he adds, although he assures that the army is generally present to avoid incidents.
“Depending on which army group it is, the soldiers support the settlers or limit them, although now they are putting limits on them,” he says.
García explains that the regular procedure of the settlers consists of “shooting” at the Palestinian peasants, burning their houses or killing their cattle to scare them into leaving and in this way keep their land and expand settlements. Many times they are killed.
In the West Bank, where 3.3 million people live – including East Jerusalem -, there is a war atmosphere, just like in Israel. As in Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem, in Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus or without tourists, many businesses and restaurants work at half throttle and close earlier than usual. The hotels are almost empty.
People save and are afraid that, after what is happening in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu will go against them.
So close and so far. Resentment between Palestinians and Israelis is only getting worse.
