Fears grow West Bank will become another front in Israel’s war as violence surges

The West Bank could turn into another front in Israel’s war as a rise in violent clashes since the attacks by Hamas leaves an ever-increasing Palestinian death toll, officials on both sides of the divide have warned.

Thirteen Palestinians, including five children, were killed when a raid by Israeli forces in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem on Thursday turned into a prolonged firefight, with an Apache helicopter-gunship being called in to fire missiles.

A sergeant with the Israeli border police was also shot dead during the operation by security forces to capture four Hamas fighters who had allegedly attacked Israeli settlers earlier this year.

While international focus has been on the death and destruction of Hamas’s murderous raid into Israel, and Israeli air strikes on Gaza, there have been repeated confrontations and bloodshed in the West Bank.

More than 80 Palestinians have been killed and almost a thousand injured in this area by Israeli forces and settlers since the Hamas attack two weeks ago, according to the health ministry in Ramallah, with a thousand injured. Around 900 people have also been arrested during that period, with Israeli snatch squads coming into the region which is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

There is open support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad especially among many young Arabs. Flags and banners of both the Islamist groups flew at the funeral of those slain at Nur Sham. Khaled, 20, who said he was a member of Islamic Jihad, said: “The Israelis are mad about what happened with Hamas and they are attacking Palestinians. I’m sure we’re going to see more and more of these attacks especially when they have big difficulties in invading Gaza.”

Some of the clashes have been the result, say the PA, of actions of settlers, 700,000 of them now in the West Bank, who have started to act aggressively and with seeming impunity since the Hamas raid. There are claims of alleged complicity by the security forces.

Four Arabs were said to have been injured by gunshots from settlers in Bethlehem on Thursday evening and another shot in Jenin.

The commander of an army unit was dismissed after an internal investigation by the military into a case where five villagers were said to have been beaten and burned with cigarettes and one was sexually abused.

An Israeli security official acknowledged that the number of arrests has risen significantly. “There are now more preventive detentions. Some of them have taken place because settlers say they feel threatened. They [the settlers] are Israeli citizens and we have a duty to protect them,” he said.

“But there is also an overall rise in security concerns. Hamas are active here, they have active cells and they have weapons caches. They want to distract us from Gaza by opening a second front.”

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an army spokesperson, continued in the same vein. “Hamas are trying to engulf Israel in a two-front war, the threat has clearly been elevated,” he said.

Sabri Saidam, a member of the Fatah Central Committee – the party that dominates the PA – and a senior adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, the PA leader, said there is apprehension that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government may try to carry out a full takeover of the West Bank.

Mr Saidam pointed out that Netanyahu’s Likud party has already passed a resolution calling for full annexation of the West Bank.

The Israeli prime minister has said he was promoting “gradual” annexation of the region. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September, he held up a map of Israel which included both the West Bank and Gaza as part of the country. The ruling coalition agreement between Likud and the hardline Religious Zionist Party calls for the “promotion of a policy whereby sovereignty is applied to the Judea and Samaria” – the biblical names for Greater Israel which includes the West Bank.

“We are living in extraordinary times now and have to prepare for extraordinary situations”, said Mr Saidam. “Netanyahu said the map of the Middle East will be changed forever with the new Gaza war. He is in a hard-right coalition that advocates settler-based expansion, and he has now got carte blanche from the US and the West to do whatever he wants and he’ll get lots of American weapons. All this can come together in a bad way.”

Hundreds of West Bank residents had clashed with security forces on Wednesday evening after air strikes at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City reportedly killed several hundred people. Israelis and Palestinians have blamed each other for the blasts.

The anger over deaths in Gaza was loudly expressed during a protest march in Ramallah following Friday prayers. There was also condemnation of a lack of international action over, they held, decades of Israeli oppression.

Ahmed Awad, a 20-year-old student, took part in a demonstration on Thursday evening. The bandaged wound on his arm which he showed was from, he claimed, an attack by settlers. “We have a farm near Nablus and there are lots of settlers in the area, they are constantly harassing and provoking us now. My brother and I went to help my father prepare for the olive harvest and found some settlers on our land” he said.

“We asked them to leave, they started shouting and then one of them went and got a gun and started shooting. I was hit on the arm, luckily it’s not too bad. We are in this situation now and our leadership does nothing. So it is not surprising that Hamas is getting support from a lot of people.”

Arab Barghouti, the 33-year-old son of the imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, regarded as the leader of the First and Second Intifada, was among those taking part in the protests.

He said: “People have realised that the only way to respond to this cycle of oppression and violence is resistance and solidarity, they feel totally abandoned by the international community. There is no doubt that Hamas has gained popularity here.

“No one can condone some of the terrible things that were done during the Hamas attack. But people see Hamas as doing something, and they don’t see the PA standing up for the people.”

Marwan Barghouti remains popular among Palestinians. According to an opinion poll earlier this year, if Mahmoud Abbas did not run in the next Palestinian presidential elections, and Barghouti was freed to take part as the Fatah candidate, he would get 41 per cent of the votes. Ismail Haniya, the international leader of Hamas, who lives in Qatar, would receive 17 per cent, and Yahya al-Sinwar – the current leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip – only 4 per cent.

“We haven’t been able to be in contact with my father since the Hamas attack, his lawyers haven’t been able to find out even where he was. The Israelis always hide him away whenever there is any trouble, I am not sure what they think he can do from a prison”, said Arab Barghouti.

Mariam Halaby felt that the Israelis missed a chance by not freeing Marwan Barghouti. “He could have been a successor to Abu Mazin [Mahmoud Abbas] in Fatah and taken on Hamas politically. But everything has changed now, and that poll doesn’t mean anything anymore.

“People support Hamas not because they agree with everything they do. I will not support Hamas. But they present themselves as representatives for disaffected people no one will listen to.”

Elizabeth Khaggo, 77 years old, came to the demonstrations with her son Jan and grandchildren Julie, eight and Ameer, 14. Her Armenian family fled to Palestine, then under British mandate, to escape the Turkish genocide of 1915 and settled there.

“I married a Palestinian and I am a Palestinian. I heard about all the barbaric things the Armenian people had to endure and how that affected generations. I’m seeing that happening to Palestinians now. The world doesn’t seem to learn anything. It’s very, very sad”, she said.

Jan Khaggo was arrested by Israeli police during the first intifada and spent two years in prison. “Will I see my son go to prison because he wants to join the resistance? Of course, I hope not. But the fact is that after all these years, nothing has changed, and we have to continue the struggle,” he said, pointing to the crowd marching for Palestine.