Following the Tulkarem Brigade’s first armed operation against Israeli forces in eight months, the Israeli army arrested over 1,000 Palestinians at random and marched them through the streets of Tulkarem, in an act of “collective vengeance.”
I met resistance fighters from the Tulkarem Brigade for an interview in the alleyways of Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. They talked about why they fight against Israel, and what their dreams are for the future.
An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Tulkarem killed 20 Palestinians in the first such attack in two decades. “We’ve been living through the occupation’s raids for more than a year now, but this was different,” says an eyewitness.
Israel’s old policy of containing armed resistance in the West Bank is over. Palestinians are now wondering whether the war on Gaza has expanded to the West Bank.
The Israeli army’s large-scale assault on the northern West Bank has entered its second day. During a battle in Nur Shams refugee camp, the Israeli army killed wanted resistance fighter Muhammad Jaber “Abu Shuja’,” leader of the Tulkarem Brigade.
The Israeli army claims that its operation in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas is the largest since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.
Since October 7 Israel’s crackdown on the West Bank town of Tulkarem has intensified. Raids are almost daily, have been more destructive and lethal, and have transformed the lives of more than 8,000 Palestinians living in the city’s refugee camps.
Israeli forces carried out a drone strike on a crowded refugee camp, killing five people including a paramedic and her daughter. Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces desecrated the bodies with a bulldozer before taking four bodies into custody.
Members of the Tulkarem resistance in the northern West Bank remain defiant as community members rally around them after an Israeli airstrike assassinated one of their leaders.
“Unprecedented terror” continues to haunt Palestinians in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank, two days after the Israeli army concluded a 52-hour-long invasion which killed 14 residents.