Palestinians wounded and detained as Israeli raids escalate across West Bank

Israeli forces and settlers carried out raids on towns, villages and refugee camps across the occupied West Bank on Thursday, wounding and detaining Palestinians, restricting movement and demolishing homes, as a military offensive and siege on the Hebron governorate entered its seventh day.

Two children were wounded during clashes triggered by a raid on the Qalandiya refugee camp, just north of occupied East Jerusalem, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said. Its teams treated a 15-year-old boy who was shot with live ammunition in both legs and a 12-year-old who was injured by live-bullet fragments; both were taken to hospital.

In the village of al-Maniya, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers and settlers beat disabled Palestinian Mohammad Ahmad Ayesh Thawabta, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

In the northern West Bank, Israeli forces detained 13 Palestinians, including three brothers, in raids before dawn on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Media Office and local sources. Most of the raids were in the Nablus governorate, where soldiers searched homes and harassed families.

Hebron siege displaces thousands

The raids and closures in Hebron began last week after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a gun attack. Both Palestinian suspects were also killed.

Hebron Governor Khaled Dudin said on Thursday that 537 families, comprising 3,361 people, had been forced from their homes, Wafa reported. They include 232 infants, 326 older people, 147 pregnant or breastfeeding women and 213 people with chronic illnesses. Municipal figures put the total number affected, including those under siege, at about 5,000 people from 780 families.

Dudin said the offensive had disrupted education for about 262,000 students across 589 schools in the governorate this week, forcing schools to move to remote learning. Officials estimated daily economic losses at 10 million to 12 million shekels ($3.2m to $3.9m).

The Palestinian Prisoner's Society said Israeli forces detained 110 Palestinians in the governorate from Friday to Wednesday. It said soldiers beat two men in Dura and Wad al-Saman and arrested two brothers while they ploughed their land east of Yatta. Forces also raided homes in Taffuh and Halhul, and settlers attacked vehicles at the city's closed northern entrance, it added.

Aid agency warns over access

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israeli forces were still operating in Hebron, blocking access and imposing tight restrictions on movement across the governorate. They are "disrupting Palestinians' access to livelihoods, education and healthcare", OCHA said, adding that most displaced families were staying with relatives. It called for further forced displacements and demolitions to be prevented.

Israeli forces also demolished memorials to Palestinians in several parts of the Hebron governorate on Thursday. In Dura, south of Hebron city, soldiers fired a heavy barrage of tear gas before bulldozing a mural bearing the images of several of the town's dead, including Bajis Abu Atwan, who was killed in the 1970s.

Al Jazeera's Muntasir Nassar, reporting from Dura, said the targeting of memorials "appears to be a new pattern recently adopted by Israeli forces across all West Bank governorates – though at a higher rate here in Hebron".

In nearby Masafer Yatta, armed settlers attacked US journalist Jasper Nathaniel and two activists in the village of Umm al-Khair on Wednesday. Russian activist Adele Shoko said on X that the settlers beat and threatened them and stole their equipment, and that Nathaniel was pepper-sprayed and arrested.

Israeli military and settler attacks across the West Bank have intensified since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Source: Al Jazeera.