Aid Group Sounds Alarm Over 'Disturbing' Israeli Rampage in West Bank

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel's military is applying "lessons" learned during its bombardment of Gaza to recent attacks on the West Bank—and a leading human rights group warned that as in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces' actions are resulting in "significant humanitarian consequences."

Operations like "Iron Wall" in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin and a "surge in settler attacks" that have been backed by the IDF "have heightened insecurity, displacement, and severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement," said the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Thursday.

Iron Wall began Tuesday, with the IDF launching airstrikes and ground attacks in the West Bank two days after a cease-fire took effect in Gaza.

At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the Iron Wall attacks and 40 people have been injured, including medical workers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

After months of warnings from rights organizations that the IDF cut off access to essential services for Gaza residents with a near-total humanitarian aid blockade and the relentless bombardment of the enclave, the NRC said that Israeli forced have "increased checkpoints, roadblocks, and other physical barriers throughout the West Bank."

"These measures further fragment Palestinian communities, restrict access to essential services, and prevent humanitarian agencies, like NRC, from reaching the communities we serve," said the group.

The latest violence in the West Bank is part of a broader trend, with Israel having begun launching airstrikes in the territory after October 7, 2023, for the first time since the Second Intifada in 2000-05.

The IDF launched Iron Wall in Jenin two weeks after a shooting attack that Israel blamed on gunmen in the refugee camp, which has long been a hub for Palestinian resistance groups and is also home to more than 24,000 Palestinians who are registered in the camp.

Katz said in a statement Wednesday that with the Jenin raid, the IDF is applying "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza."

"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said.

In addition to the attacks in Jenin, masked Israeli settlers have been filmed setting fire to homes and vehicles in towns across the Israeli-occupied territory in what the Israel-based human rights group B'Tselem called an effort to "impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians" as part of the cease-fire agreement in Gaza.

Residents told Al Jazeera that "constant gunfire and explosions" have been heard in Jenin since Iron Wall began, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that the IDF has left the camp "nearly uninhabitable."

An estimated 2,000 families have been displaced from the Jenin area since December, according to the agency.

"We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate, and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza," said Angelita Caredda, NRC's Middle East and North Africa regional director. "Under international law, Israel must bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to an end as rapidly as possible. Until then, it must fully comply with its obligations as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians."

In addition to airstrikes and ground attacks, the governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told Agence France-Presse that Israeli military bulldozers have destroyed all roads leading to the camp and to the nearby hospital. Twenty Palestinians from villlages in the Jenin area have been detained since Iron Wall began on Tuesday, according to the governor.

"What we are seeing in Jenin camp is horrific, said one paramedic trained by Doctors Without Borders. "People are targeted while being evacuated, and the wounded cannot be reached by ambulance."

In 2024, Israeli demolitions in the West Bank reached a record high, said the NRC, with 1,768 structures destroyed. IDF soldiers and settlers killed at least 499 Palestinians in the territory last year.

U.S. President Donald Trump has selected at least two nominees for high-level diplomatic positions—Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for U.N. ambassador and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel—who have expressed support for right-wing Israeli officials' claim that Israel has a "Biblical right" to the West Bank.

Amid the settler violence and Jenin raid, Caredda called on the international community to "take decisive action to stop these violations and end the occupation."

"Impunity for serious violations of international law has allowed Israel to unlawfully escalate violence in the occupied West Bank," said Caredda.