Key Developments (Dec 27 – Jan 2)
- Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians in the Jenin-area town of Kafr Dan. They are Mohammad Samer Houshieh, 22, and Fouad Mahmoud Abed, 25.
- Three other Palestinians wounded in Kafr Dan.
- Israeli forces raid Kafr Dan and punitively demolish the homes of two Palestinians who carried out the Jalameh checkpoint operation in September that killed one Israeli soldier. Three apartments were destroyed, displacing 13 people.
- 18 Palestinians were detained on the first night of the new year from across the West Bank and Jerusalem.
- Tensions rise across occupied Palestinian territory as right-wing Israeli lawmaker and new National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir plans visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.
In Depth
It was a year of resistance and repression. 2022 saw the resurgence of armed Palestinian resistance in the West Bank for the first time since the Second Intifada. It was also the year in which all the illusions came crashing down — the fantasy that Palestinian collaborationism and security coordination would continue indefinitely, or the lie that Zionism would halt its relentless colonial expansion and the deployment of Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” strategy. Instead, the West Bank rose up, and the Israeli response was characteristically brutal — during the first half of the year, the Israeli state launched “Operation Break the Wave,” a wide-ranging counterinsurgency campaign to break the back of the resistance, and during the latter half of 2022, the inheritors of Jabotinsky and the spirit of Zionism were voted into office. It was Palestine’s moment of truth.
The beginning of the new year has made it clear that the Israeli onslaught is just getting started. The first martyrs of the year were Mohammad Houshieh and Fouad Abed, who engaged in armed confrontations with the Israeli army as it invaded their hometown of Kafr Dan to punitively demolish the homes of Abed al-Rahman Abed and Ahmad Abed, the two Palestinians responsible for the Jalameh checkpoint operation in September of last year that killed one Israeli soldier.
The raid on Kafr Dan and the killing of two Palestinians on the second day of the year made it clear for all that “Break the Wave” would continue into 2023, as 18 Palestinians have already been arrested since the start of the year. More portentous still are this year’s latest harbingers of the coming escalation — Itamar Ben Gvir intends to raid the Al-Aqsa compound, and Hamas promises that it “won’t sit idly by” when he does.
At the end of a 2022 in review piece, Mondoweiss staff reflect on the likely developments for 2023:
“The contours of the coming year won’t be hard to predict. The ongoing colonial confiscation of Palestinian lands, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities, the rabid attacks of settler lynch mobs, and the all-out assault on defiant Palestinian communities and havens of armed resistance are all likely to continue into the new year, with even greater ferocity than before.
But the one factor that remains uncertain also means everything: what will be the fate of Palestinian resistance?”
The answer to the latter question will decide the fate of the coming year.
Important figures
- 231 Palestinians killed in 2022
- 173 Palestinians killed in West Bank and East Jerusalem alone in 2022
- 7,000 Palestinians arrested in 2022 according to prisoner’s rights groups
Mondoweiss Highlights
A year of resistance and repression: a timeline of ‘Operation Break the Wave’, by Mariam Barghouti
231 Palestinians were killed this year. These are their stories, by Yumna Patel
2022 in review: Palestine’s moment of truth, by Yumna Patel, Mariam Barghouti and Faris Giacaman
