As Israel wages war in Gaza, Palestinian death toll in West Bank surges

With scores of Palestinians killed across the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, rights groups have accused Israel of giving soldiers free rein to shoot on sight while war rages in Gaza. In just over five weeks since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, at least 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry. The figure is almost as high as the ministry’s toll of 208 dead for the first nine months of the year up to the start of the war. The surge in violence comes as raids by Israeli forces on Palestinian communities have multiplied in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Iyad Haddad, from the anti-occupation Israeli organisation B’Tselem, said “the Israeli army and settlers now have a free hand to fire on Palestinians in the West Bank” in an unprecedented way. Since Monday alone, the health ministry said nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. West Bank a possible ‘third front’ for Israel in a wider war The first was a 66-year-old taxi driver shot dead in Hebron, in the southern West Bank. “A soldier heard shots and responded” the Israeli army said, while witnesses said the man killed was not involved in any violence. Seven Palestinians were subsequently killed during an Israeli raid in Tulkarem, in the north, while a ninth was shot dead near Hebron on Tuesday morning. Last week, Israel’s extreme-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who lives in a settlement himself, gave stark instructions to law enforcement. “Zero tolerance. In case of doubt, there is no doubt,” he said in annexed east Jerusalem, where a Palestinian was shot after allegedly attacking Israeli police. In the West Bank, the Israeli military said they were responding to a “significant rise in terrorist attacks”, with more than 550 attempted incidents since the start of the Gaza war. At least three Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since October 7, including one who was shot dead by a fellow soldier. Israeli forces raid Gaza’s main hospital, urge Hamas to surrender In the northern city of Jenin, doctor Pedro Serrano recalled treating multiple gunshot wounds during a raid on Thursday. Most “had been shot in the abdomen and the legs”, said Serrano, from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). “Some had an exploded liver or spleen, the others had serious vascular wounds,” he added. “There was also a really sad case, of a man who walked just in front of the hospital and was hit in the head by a sniper,” said Serrano. The Israeli incursion into Jenin was the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank since at least 2005, according to United Nations data, with the Palestinian health ministry announcing 14 people were killed. For its part, the Israeli military announced “10 terrorists were killed, and over 20 wanted suspects were apprehended” in the densely-populated city, which saw gun battles between Israeli forces and Palestinians. Two of those detained were members of the Islamic Jihad militant group, which is allied with Hamas, the army said. The Hamas attacks on October 7 killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials. Since then Israel has retaliated with relentless strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza, killing more than 11,200 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. While the concurrent Israeli raids in the West Bank have frequently been fatal, other Palestinians have been killed in clashes. Sayed Homeidat, a 17-year-old from Jalazone refugee camp, was one of the dozens of minors killed in recent weeks. According to eyewitnesses, B’Tselem and Palestinian rights group al-Haq, he was shot dead by an Israeli soldier standing more than a hundred metres away. Israeli forces had blocked a road to repair a wall, which separates the camp from the Israeli settlement of Beit El on October 26. Young Palestinians threw stones at soldiers but Homeidat was not involved, witnesses said. For Omran al-Risheq, from al-Haq, “it’s very clear that the soldiers shoot to kill even if they are not in danger”. The two rights organisations accuse the military of using live bullets, rather than other means, to disperse protesters. Journalists working in the West Bank have confirmed that Israeli troops are not using tear gas as much as they used to before the war, while the killings have surged.