In recent weeks, Palestinians across the West Bank have organized themselves into small “battalions” of both armed and unarmed youth to confront the constant Israeli invasions of their villages and homes. Not much is known about them, nor about the youth that makes up these decentralized groups, but they continue to appear because Israeli army and settler provocation show no signs of waning.
In one of the bloodiest weeks since the start of 2022, Israel kills 11 Palestinians in an attempt to make resistance too costly for Palestinians.
It is only a matter of time before the Israeli military and security apparatus unleashes its next wave of collective punishment in response to the Jerusalem twin bombings. We are merely waiting before the calm inevitably gives way to the storm.
The past few months have seen the evolution of two dynamics in parallel — the proliferation of “lone wolf” attacks, and the expansion of organized Palestinian armed resistance groups. Israel has worked hard to eradicate both types of resistance, yet it has had considerably less success in anticipating and preventing the actions of the lone wolves.
Last week, the Israeli army’s ongoing military campaign against armed Palestinian resistance groups shifted its focus from the Old City of Nablus (after claiming to have quelled the Lions’ Den resistance group there) to Balata refugee camp.
Israel declares victory in Nablus, but where it has assassinated armed resistance members it has failed to eliminate resistance.
Welcome to the first in our new series, the West Bank Dispatch. This newsletter will cover the main developments you need to know about Palestinian resistance to Israeli settler-colonialism in the occupied West Bank. Each week we’ll bring you key developments, analysis from our Palestine news team, and insight into what Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid in the West Bank are reading and talking about.