Israel wants to steal even more of Palestine.

Despite the Israeli government’s repeated violations and efforts to sabotage the ceasefire deal in Gaza, it continues to hold, albeit tenuously. But in the month since the deal’s announcement, Israeli forces have intensified their focus on the West Bank in what the government calls “Operation Iron Wall,” using the same genocidal tactics it developed in Gaza. 

More than a month of raids and attacks by the Israeli military and settlers alike have already displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians.

These attacks are intended to clear the way for the permanent theft of Palestinian land — further accelerating the ongoing process of illegal Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

The Gaza playbook in the West Bank

The Israeli military has been amping up its attacks on towns across the West Bank since the end of January, raiding Palestinians’ homes, blowing up buildings, and destroying critical infrastructure. At least 57 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed since the assault began. Most recently, two Palestinian children, 12 and 13, were both shot in the back and killed on Saturday by Israeli troops in separate incidents.

Now, at least 40,000 Palestinians living in the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams have been forced to flee their homes. These camps, now more than 75 years old, were originally built to house those displaced by the violent ethnic cleansing of the Nakba during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. 

Having forcibly displaced its population, the Israeli military this past weekend brought in tanks and bulldozers to Jenin, destroying roads and demolishing large areas of the camp. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed that Palestinians displaced from these camps would not be permitted to return home — and that he had instructed Israeli forces to occupy the camps “for the next year.”

“Jenin is a repeat of what happened in Jabalia,” Basheer Matahen, spokesperson for the Jenin municipality, told Reuters. “The camp has become uninhabitable.” Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, also initially created to house Palestinians displaced by violent Israeli ethnic cleansing during the Nakba, was first invaded and then decimated by Israeli forces during the last 15 months of genocide.

Armed settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have also continued alongside the intensification of Israeli military violence. This is another long-standing Israeli strategy of ethnic cleansing: Violent settlers, ostensibly independent from the Israeli state, carry out attacks on Palestinians, seeking to destroy and steal their homes and land — attacks which the Israeli military either does nothing to stop or actively encourages.

Pushing towards annexation

The goal of Zionism has always been to remove Palestinians from Palestine at any cost.

In the West Bank, the Israeli government has long been implementing a policy of de facto annexation — Israelis taking Palestinian land through force, mostly through the violent and illegal expansion of Israeli settlements onto Palestinian land, then indefinitely occupying the stolen land. In addition to home theft and demolition, Israeli settlers terrorize and frequently kill West Bank Palestinians. Israeli courts then retroactively legalize the land theft, effectively adding the stolen land to Israel’s territory.

This process, entirely illegal under international law, has been the foundation of Israeli expansion onto Palestinian land for decades. 

“What we are seeing is an intensified campaign aimed at annexation of the West Bank,” observed Palestinian journalist Mariam Barghouti. “We’re seeing a joint military, armed settler attack that is happening in tandem and at once against Palestinians. And it is lethal. We’ve had at least 57 Palestinians killed in the last 35 days alone, eight of whom are children. And this is not counting the injuries that are being sustained, either from live ammunition or physical beatings, and the mass arrests that are happening, including field interrogations by the Israeli army.”

Trump has yet to officially announce his policy on the West Bank, teasing it as coming in the next few weeks, but if policy from his first term is any indication, the Israeli government can count on his support for its escalated ethnic cleansing campaign. In 2020, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s signature “Deal of the Century” proposed partial Israeli annexation of the West Bank. While de facto annexation had been going on for decades, in the form of the ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on West Bank Palestinian land, settlement expansion spiked massively after the Trump administration signaled this shift towards outright U.S. support for annexation. 

Escalating violence, escalating theft

Combining the long-standing practice of illegal settlement expansion, and the genocidal strategy of invading Palestinian land, violently clearing it, and then decimating it, the Israeli state’s newest operation in the West Bank is an attempt to accelerate its theft of West Bank Palestinian land even further, intensifying its violence in order to accelerate its territorial expansion. 

The U.S. government’s total complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, combined with its decades-long refusal to impose any real costs on Israel’s illegal settlement expansion, has set the stage for these horrors. 

Wherever there is Israeli violence and brutality, there are U.S. funds and weapons arming it. In this moment, the demand for an arms embargo is as urgent as ever.

Tell Congress: End U.S. weapons to Israel.

As the genocidal Israeli military escalates its violence in the West Bank, Trump is moving to authorize a $8.5 billion weapons shipment to the Israeli regime. 

Use this tool provided by our sister organization, JVP Action, to email your members of Congress and demand an immediate end to U.S. military funding to Israel.

What we’re learning.

JVP is excited to co-sponsor an online course, focused on campaigns and organizing efforts within the context of the Trump administration and volatile circumstances on the ground in Palestine. Participants are welcome to join us and apply analysis and organizing lessons to their own work at this time — whether their primary focus is on Palestine solidarity or another struggle. JVP Director of Grassroots Organizing Jemma Pasch is joining as one of multiple guest teachers.

Register now for Study & Action for Palestine 2025: Fighting fascism at home & abroad.

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