For several days earlier this month, many young people in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank town of Turkam were engaged in a race against the clock for their lives.
We clambered up a precarious ladder and between the roofs were stretched vast sheets of plastic, used in more peaceful times to collect the olive harvest. Soon, the several hundred meters of winding path was in deep shadow, and neither the sun nor the sky could be seen. The hill behind the building, which afforded a view of the Mediterranean Sea less than 20 kilometers away, was no longer visible.
“Hamas has tunnels in Gaza. Now we have them too,” said one of the residents I guided. observer Through camp.
These “tunnels” may not be as deep, expensive or sturdy as those of Hamas, which ruled Gaza for 17 years and invested billions in an underground network stretching hundreds of kilometers beneath its territory. But they have about the same effect in blunting Israel's efforts to deploy powerful air power against its enemies.
With the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now routinely using armed drones to monitor and target militants, the young men were scrambling to learn that the tunnels would soon be needed.
The worst wave of violence in nearly two decades has hit the West Bank since Hamas launched a bloody surprise attack from Gaza into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians. 358 Palestinians and 5 Israelis killed Throughout the territory.
Many of these were killed in a series of large-scale raids launched by the Israeli Defense Forces against Palestinian militant positions. Convoys of armored vehicles carrying hundreds of soldiers rolled into Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank towns. A wave of mass detentions, often without charge, has pushed thousands of people into Israeli prisons.
Israeli analysts and military officials have described the West Bank as Israel's “third front” after the conflict with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamic militant group across the disputed northern border with the Gaza Strip. are doing.
A senior Israeli military official said. observer Last month, it argued that both raids and detentions are essential to root out networks planning attacks on Israeli civilians. Two Palestinians were arrested in connection with a fatal car crash in the West Bank last week. 1 person, 17 injured Approximately 32 miles outside Tel Aviv.
“When we go inside, we are attacked by hidden homemade bombs, but if they are fired, we fight back,” he said.
Many analysts point to attacks by extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank, harsh economic conditions, a security crackdown and a surge in violence as reasons for the new violence. They argue that the destruction associated with the attacks encourages radicalization and recruitment into armed groups.
At the Nur Shams camp, the damage sustained during recent Israeli operations was evident. Hundreds of meters of the main road outside the camp was destroyed. The road to the camp was similar. There was rubble where social and sports clubs once stood. The wedding hall was half in ruins. The walls had shrapnel and bullet holes. Water pipes were destroyed and power lines were dragged down.
Outside one house, the front wall was torn away and the homeowner shrugged his shoulders.
“I saw the bulldozers coming, and I ran with my family. When I came back, it was like this. We were just in the way,” he said. observer.
Israeli officials say the bulldozers will be used to dig out buried homemade bombs.
A few hundred meters away, Ahmed Ishad, 25, showed the inside of a charred bakery where much of the equipment had been destroyed in a fire caused by an Israeli drone-launched missile that fell nearby.
Fawzi Shahada, who runs a toy store in the camp, said troops raided his home for weapons. “They destroyed everything and ordered the children's drawings of guns to be removed from the walls,” the 63-year-old said.
Several people claimed that during the raid, a number of men were rounded up, handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to a military base, where they were held outside for 24 to 48 hours.
Many fighters are recruited from families with long histories of violent activity. The first residents of refugee camps such as Nur Shams were forced to leave their homes during the 1948 war over the creation of the state of Israel. Since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, there have been a series of uprisings known as intifadas against rebel groups. Profession. Current levels of violence are approaching his 2000 to 2005 levels.
More than 30 people have been killed in airstrikes and attacks in Noor Shams since October 7. Local residents claim that only two people joined the “resistance,” but this claim was dismissed as ridiculous by Israeli authorities.
Last week, the IDF launched a new raid in Turkum, causing further damage. Israeli military officials said they had seized more than 400 explosives, 27 weapons and several leaders of a local terrorist network. One Israeli soldier was seriously injured.
One operation targeted the Noor Shams camp. In total, at least eight Palestinians were killed and 12 injured, making last Wednesday's death toll across the West Bank the highest single-day death toll in months.
Armed groups such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an ally and sometimes rival of Hamas, maintain a strong grip on the camps.Two men charged with cooperating with Israeli security services publicly executed In November, an attempt to hang himself from a telephone pole in Turkum failed, and his body was thrown from a wall.
When asked who was paying for the large quantities of plastic sheets, the militants said the community would “donate” them.
Like many armed groups in the West Bank, the militants are harsh critics of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was established to administer parts of the territory and Gaza following the 1990s peace process.
“We are not fighting the PA for now, but the PA should support us or leave,” said Abu Adil, commander of PIJ, a powerful local armed group.
Speaking from a laneway in the back of the camp, Abu Adir said the attack would not deter him or other militants.
“What is difficult for us is being away from our homeland,” the 38-year-old said. “Our path is the path of Gaza from the river to the liberation of the sea.”
As attacks continued last week, IDF senior spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF “will continue to act as necessary to deter terrorism.”
