Clashes break out across West Bank after Netanyahu declares ‘an all-out war’

Scores of Palestinians were injured in clashes across the West Bank and more than 200 were arrested in Jerusalem, after Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday he is “running an all-out war against Palestinian terrorism.”

Palestinians protested today in a “day of rage,” after a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli citizens in the past week and Israeli incursions into the West Bank and Jerusalem—including the demolition of two homes overnight Monday and the killings of three Palestinian youths in the preceding 24 hours.

During the West Bank’s main demonstration outside Ramallah, Israeli fire injured 13, six of them from live rounds, including Salah Zayyad, 35, a Palestinian journalist who was shot in the abdomen. Palestinian demonstrators threw rocks at security forces.

In Bethlehem, 27 were treated for tear gas inhalation, seven for injuries from rubber bullets, including two who are in critical condition for shots fired at the head. Another seven were hurt in a traffic accident after losing visibility while driving near the clash, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

The march followed a funeral for Abdel-Rahman Abeidallah, 13, who was shot in the heart during a demonstration yesterday. Abeidallah was the third Palestinian killed by Israeli forces on Sunday and Monday.

Before daybreak Israeli forces demolished the East Jerusalem homes of Ghassan Abu Jamal, 32, and Muhammed el-Ja’abis, 23, two Palestinians from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood who were implicated in the killings of Israelis in 2014. Abu Jamal and his cousin Uday Abu Jamal, 22, stabbed to death five in a bloody attack on a north Jerusalem synagogue. El-Ja’abis was accused of killing an Israeli with a bulldozer in Jerusalem and was shot dead on the scene by security forces. His family says that it was not an intentional act, that he lost control of the tractor.

Punitive home demolitions are illegal under international law as a form of collective punishment. While Israel leveled houses as punishment throughout the second Intifada, a moratorium on the practice was in place at the close of the uprising until mid-2014.

Clashes ensued across Jerusalem and Israeli Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said over social media that more than 250 were arrested Tuesday in the holy city.

In the afternoon Netanyahu visited the site where two Israelis were killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City Saturday night, and the prime minister again endorsed harsher policing and increased surveillance. Netanyahu promised “a very serious plan in which we will deploy ground and aerial cameras on all roads in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], with command and control centers, communication centers and fast response times,” adding the measures were “a very, very important element in restoring security.”

The statement echoed remarks from Netanyahu made last night where he said, “The police are going deeply into the Arab neighborhoods, which has not been done in the past. We will demolish terrorists’ homes.”

Secretary-General of the PLO Saeb Erekat said, “Mr. Netanyahu’s announcement is a reminder to the international community of the urgent need for international intervention to protect the occupied Palestinian people from relentless attack by the Israeli military forces and terrorist settlers.” Erekat has been issuing statements in recent weeks appealing for United Nations and NATO protection forces.

“Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist government cannot and will not break the will of our people to fulfill our inalienable rights in an independent State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Erekat continued.

Meanwhile the PLO announced early this evening that it will convene the Palestinian National Council, the highest legislative body of the government, and invited rival factions, Hamas and al-Jihad, to participate. The move would mark a cooling of the PLO’s tense relationship with Islamic parties, one of which, Hamas, governs the Gaza Strip but is formally excluding from the overarching Palestinian government. 

These political developments had no visible effect on the demonstration by Ramallah youth at Qalandia checkpoint today. Palestinian schools are on strike over the killing of a 13-year old yesterday by Israeli forces in Bethlehem, and teams of youngsters waited outside of Qalandia refugee camp until the demonstration began. A group of teens debated whether or not a third Intifada had already started–with most saying it had not. 

“I want an Intifada, but there is is no political program to obtain freedom,” Ward Adawi, 22, an emergency medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, said after treating a Palestinian teen who was injured by a concussion grenade fired by the Israeli army.

“I don’t want demonstrations. I want an agreement with Israel,” said Rafah Alam, 18, as he sold coffee from a yellow kiosk stationed in the main street that runs between Qalandia and Ramallah. For Alam, it was unclear if the “day of rage” and a week of clashes between Palestinians protesters and the Israeli military—with settlers targeting Palestinians with flaming tires and rocks—would usher in another uprising, although he hoped it would not.

“The people here are very tired. They don’t trust our government at all– [or] the Israeli government,” said Walid Bayrat, 30, a sportswear store owner in Qalandia refugee camp during the clashes. “We don’t want to fight Israel, we are civilians, all the people you see here are civilians,” he said, motioning at the crowd of elementary aged children that comprised most of the protesters.

“If there is another Intifada the loser will be the people—our people—and not our government,” Bayrat said. He predicted that the current tinderbox will quiet “in one month only when all of our people will be defeated.”