On Tuesday, January 21—two days after the Gaza ceasefire began and the day after Trump took office—Israel launched a new, more intense campaign of repression and murder against Palestinians in the West Bank. The Israelis claim this is a “counterterrorism” operation. In fact, it’s a further extension of the Israeli campaign of genocidal “ethnic cleansing” they have been carrying out for nearly a year and a half.

The West Bank is the area of historic Palestine west of the Jordan River (on the east side of what is now Israel). It is home to 2.5 million Palestinians and has been mandated by the United Nations to be part of a future Palestinian state. Yet it has been under military occupation by Israel since it was seized by Israel through war in 1967. 

It is a basic principle of international law that a country that is occupying a territory cannot just take it over as part of its own country. But since 1967, Israel—with U.S. backing—has violated international law and flooded the West Bank with illegal settlements and 500,000 settlers, carving up the territory and forcing Palestinians into small areas surrounded by Israeli military and hemmed in with “checkpoints.” At the same time, the Palestinian population is subjected to continuous terror by heavily armed, rabidly racist “settlers.”

Israelis Assault Jenin, a Center of Resistance

The main initial target was Jenin, a city of 50,000 in the north of the West Bank. Jenin has long been a hub of Palestinian resistance. This resistance began in the 1930s to British colonialism, continued in 1948 against Israel’s founding, and since then has persisted against Israel’s ongoing atrocities and apartheid. Most all of its inhabitants are refugees from Israel’s ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine.¹

Now, small groups of Islamic fundamentalist fighters regularly clash with Israeli forces. Israel has used those clashes to justify unleashing a storm of ethnic cleansing aimed at the Palestinian people as a whole.

A Gaza-Like Assault on Jenin

Israel’s Defense Minister Katz called the new military campaign in the West Bank part of “a shift in security strategy” that took lessons from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, Israeli forces attacked Jenin with troops, airstrikes, drones, U.S.-made Apache helicopter gunships, massive bulldozers, and other weapons. 

Eyewitnesses reported constant gunfire and explosions, checkpoints being set up across the city, and the creation of “corridors” through which families were forced to flee—at gunpoint—“or else.” They described seeing bodies in the streets, and ambulances being blocked from reaching the dead and wounded. 

Doctors reported Israeli soldiers had besieged two hospitals, and that medical teams were coming under fire. Some 600 medical workers and patients were forced to shelter overnight in one governmental hospital, as Israeli bulldozers piled dirt against the building’s doors to prevent people from leaving. Three doctors and two nurses were shot on the road leading to the hospital during the week, according to the hospital director. 

One young resident said Israel cut off water and electricity, forcing his family to flee. “It’s as if they came to us straight from Gaza with large vehicles, aggressive gunfire and drones,” he said. Another said, “The Israeli army wants to destroy the camp… They want to destroy the houses, bulldoze the streets and remove residents from the camp. They told us to get out before they start bombing.” 

At least 13 Palestinians have been killed so far, and at this writing, some 2,000 families have been displaced by the fighting. 

Pigs of U.S.-Backed “Palestinian Authority” Lay Siege to Jenin

Israel’s assault on Jenin comes on the heels of a six-week siege on the refugee camp by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which had already driven three-quarters of Jenin’s residents from their homes. This “Authority” supposedly represents the Palestinian people in the West Bank. In reality they’re shameful collaborators and betrayers of the Palestinians. This phony “Authority” was set up by the U.S. and Israel in 1994 as part of the Oslo Peace Agreement, and it continues to be funded by the U.S. and the European Union. Its actual job has never been to represent the Palestinian people—it’s been policing the Palestinian people on behalf of Israel, the U.S. and the western imperialists. 

Over these six weeks, the PA cut electricity from families. It has denied people access to medical care and targeted medics. These lackeys have, like Israel, arrested journalists as well as resistance fighters, some of whom report being tortured by the PA.

“I am so upset by the Palestinian Authority invasion—they burned the houses, installed snipers on the rooftops and opened fire randomly,” one Jenin resident told the Guardian. “This continued until Israeli forces entered the camp… we are living between two fires.”

Israeli Settler and Military Violence Skyrocket Across the West Bank 

Israel’s attack on Jenin comes in the wake of unprecedented Israeli military and settler violence across the West Bank since October 7, 2023. 

• Since then, near-daily Israeli military raids and some 1,400 settler attacks have killed nearly 800 Palestinians and injured 6,700 others. Over 14,000 have been arrested.
• According to the United Nations, “Approximately 4,250 Palestinians have been displaced and 1,760 structures destroyed.”
• The number of illegal settler outposts being erected has been unprecedented.
• Before this most recent invasion, Israel had already raided Jenin more than a dozen times over the past year.
• According to the U.N., Israeli forces have killed 34 Palestinians, including six children, across the West Bank since the start of the new year.

Trump Green-Lights Genocidal Violence, Stoking More

On Trump’s first day in office, he made a number of moves that green-lighted and unleashed even more extreme violence by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank (see “Week One: Trump Unleashes Even More Extreme Atrocities by Israel and Its Religious-Fanatic Rulers”). 

As Trump was taking these actions, Israeli settlers attacked Jinasfut, a West Bank Palestinian village, injuring some 21 while setting fire to homes, cars, a nursery, and workshop, according to village officials.²  

This Is Genocidal Terror—Not “Counterterrorism”

As Israel rains terror on the Palestinian people in the West Bank, it justifies its brutal siege as part of “counterterrorism operations,” designed “to pre-empt and apprehend the terrorists before they reach our civilians.” 

The New York Times repeats the core of this narrative by “reporting” that Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in “clashes with Israeli forces and settlers.” This “model” of (imperialist) objectivity does not mention that Israel’s main targets are civilians, and pretends that a few lightly armed Islamic fundamentalist fighters are comparable to Israel’s modern, heavily armed military and armed fanatic settler vigilantes who work with it. 

When Netanyahu talks of an “extensive and significant” campaign in the West Bank to “eradicate terrorism,” he is seizing on actions by these reactionary Islamist groups, targeting Israel, to unleash terrorist ethnic cleansing and genocide aimed at the civilian population, as Israel has carried out in Gaza.

Right-wing Israeli officials are open about their genocidal program. In November, Ben-Gvir, at the time Netanyahu’s National Security minister, suggested Israel should outright annex the West Bank. And Finance Minister Smotrich, reportedly anticipating Trump’s victory, ordered preparations be made for the annexation of the West Bank this year.

With Trump and his pro-Israel Christian fascist fanatics in power, Israel may indeed attempt to implement this unprecedented genocidal nightmare, and to continue their broader regional war, aimed at locking down U.S. and Israeli dominance across the Middle East.