Above photo: Mourners carry the bodies of the martyrs from the Israeli airstrike on al-Far’a refugee camp in Tubas, September 5, 2024. Mohammed Nasser/APA Images.
Not To ‘Mow The Lawn,’ But ‘Pull Out The Roots’.
The UN has said that Israel is now using “war-like tactics” against Palestinians in the northern West Bank. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has reiterated his insistence on maintaining an Israeli military presence along the Philadelphi Corridor.
Casualties
- 40,861+ killed and at least 94,400 wounded in the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza-based Ministry of Health as of September 5, 2024. At least 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.
- 691+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank, 5,700 wounded since October 7, according to Palestinian Ministry of Health as of September 5, 2024.
Key Developments
- Israel kills 17 Palestinians, injures 56 others in Gaza in past 24 hours, says Gaza-based health ministry on September 5.
- Israel kills 39 Palestinians, wounds 145 in West Bank since beginning of “Operation Summer Camps” on August 28.
- Israeli army invasion of northern West Bank cities enters ninth day as fighting continues between Palestinian resistance groups and Israeli army in Jenin refugee camp.
- OCHA reports Israel using “lethal war-like tactics” in West Bank.
- Israeli army considers West Bank “second front” in war after Gaza, objective not to “mow the lawn,” but to “pull out the roots,” Israel Hayom reports.
- Gaza-based Health Ministry says Israeli army refusing entry of medical teams to deliver and administer emergency polio vaccines.
- Video footage shows Israel paving road along Philadelphi Corridor.
- Israeli forces reinvade Tulkarem amid continued fighting.
- Israeli army kills group of 6 young men, including Muhammad Zubeidi, son of Palestinian political prisoner and former Gilboa Prison Break escapee Zakaria Zubeidi, in airstrike on al-Far’a refugee camp in Tubas, northern West Bank.
‘Operation Summer Camps’ Day 9
The wide-ranging Israeli invasion of the northern West Bank, dubbed “Operation Summer Camps,” has now entered its ninth consecutive day. During this period of time, the Israeli army has focused the bulk of its attacks on Jenin refugee camp and the city of Jenin. The operation has also included repeated invasions of Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and al-Far’a refugee camp in Tubas, sometimes for 48 hours at a time, and at other points only for a few hours on limited missions. The UN’s OCHA has reported that “Israeli forces have been using lethal, war-like tactics across the northern West Bank” as part of the ongoing operation.
In related news, Israel Hayom reported on Wednesday that the Israeli army now considers the West Bank as a “second front immediately after Gaza” in Israel’s current war.
“The events of the last few days have led the security establishment to a significant policy change in Judea and Samaria,” the Israeli newspaper said, using the biblical Zionist term for the West Bank. “Since the beginning of the war, the [West Bank] has been defined as a ‘secondary arena’ that needs to be maintained with stability, but the recent attacks have proven to officials that this can no longer be done.”
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom clarified that the army’s new designation is only a “preliminary directive” at the current stage, but that a series of operations should be expected in the West Bank for the foreseeable future.
The newspaper also reported that the Israeli army is determined to return the West Bank to a state of calm by October, contrasted with the “mini-Intifada that is currently taking place in the area.”
Consequently, the objective of increasing military operations in the West Bank is not to “mow the lawn, but to pull out the roots,” an Israeli security official told Israel Hayom.
This new Israeli directive has already been translated into practice, as invasions of Tulkarem and Tubas have increased in intensity, frequency, and number of casualties over the past two days.
In Tubas, the Israeli army launched an airstrike on al-Far’a refugee camp on Thursday morning, targeting and killing a group of six young men. Among the slain was Muhammad Zubeidi, the son of prominent Palestinian political prisoner and former Gilboa Prison Break escapee Zakaria Zubeidi. In 2022, Zakaria Zubeidi’s brother, Daoud, was assassinated by Israeli forces during a raid in Jenin refugee camp.
On Thursday morning, the Israeli army invaded Tulkarem refugee camp and Tulkarem proper, only to withdraw and then reinvade within the span of a few hours. Wafa News Agency reported that Israeli forces entered from the city’s western entrance and forced shop owners to close their businesses down.
Israeli forces also demolished a home belonging to the al-Doush family later in the day, which was detonated after planting explosives inside it amid a wider invasion of the camp, with Israeli troops surrounding the camp’s entrances.
According to Wafa’s correspondent, the bulk of Israeli operations were concentrated in the northeastern part of the refugee camp, raiding several homes, interrogating residents, and physically assaulting youth.
In Jenin, the Israeli army forced six Palestinian families to leave their homes in the al-Damaj and Jorat al-Dahab neighborhoods in Jenin refugee camp on Thursday, Wafa reported.
The army had told residents to flee in the direction of the villages west of Jenin using ambulances. Wafa has cited local sources saying that hundreds of Jenin residents have been displaced over the past nine days as part of Operation Summer Camps.
Mondoweiss published an analysis yesterday by contributor Abdaljawad Omar, who argues that “Israel is testing the tolerance levels of its international allies and satisfying its right-wing base all at once, gauging the extent to which it can get away with changing the realities on the ground in the West Bank.”
Omar adds:
“Let us be clear: these measures are not merely empty gestures or intimidation tactics; they serve as a clear indication of what is to come. The groundwork is being laid for a more comprehensive and systematic effort to further isolate and delink Israel from Palestinians in the West Bank, make more aggressive land grabs, and prepare for a broader offensive.”
Israel will do so through “a relentless combination of psychological warfare, overwhelming firepower, and the deliberate creation of unbearable conditions designed to drive the Palestinian population to leave.” Omar concludes that these inevitable military operations “will continue to define the region for the foreseeable future.”
Strikes Continue Across Gaza As Netanyahu Doubles Down On Demands
Israeli airstrikes and military operations continued across the Gaza Strip, leading to the killing of dozens of Palestinians in different parts of the coastal enclave.
In northern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes targeted the area near Kamal Adwan Hospital, killing at least three people and wounding several others, including children, Al Jazeera’s local correspondent reported. In the past 24 hours, 17 Palestinians have been killed and 56 others have been wounded, the Gaza-based Palestinian Ministry of Health said in its September 5 report.
On Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference to explain his reasons for insisting on holding onto the Philadelphi Corridor as part of ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.
“If you want to release the hostages, you’ve got to hold on to the Philadelphi Corridor,” Netanyahu said at the conference, according to Ynet. “Gaza cannot have a future if Gaza remains porous, and you can enable the rearmament of Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.”
The Philadelphi Corridor is a two-kilometer-wide strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt that Israel claims Hamas uses to smuggle weapons via underground tunnels that run through it. The insistence on holding onto the corridor has been a key component in Netanyahu’s strategy to avoid a ceasefire. Netanyahu has claimed that maintaining an Israeli presence in Philadelphi, and secondarily in the Netzarim Corridor — a four-kilometer-wide strip of land in the center of Gaza that splits the coastal enclave in two — is central to any postwar arrangement.
Earlier in the week, on September 2, Netanyahu made a television appearance in which he explained his plan for Gaza in front of a map depicting the Philadelphia and Netzarim Corridors. According to an explainer by Al Jazeera, Netanyahu said that Israel would maintain a full military presence in the area north of the Netzarim Corridor and continue military operations there, which includes nearly all of northern Gaza. People would not be allowed to return and reconstruction would be prevented in those areas. Meanwhile, the Israeli army would also build a new corridor between Rafah and Khan Younis and maintain a military presence along Philadelphi, effectively fully occupying Gaza.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday that Hamas remained the “biggest obstacle” to a ceasefire deal. In contrast, Hamas spokesperson Khalil al-Hayya has reiterated Hamas’s support for the ceasefire proposal presented by the Biden administration last June, which Hamas had already accepted in July. In a press release on Wednesday, Hamas said that “Netanyahu’s continued policy of intransigence, evasion, and obstruction of reaching an agreement puts the lives of more [Israeli] prisoners [held in Gaza] at risk.”
In other news, a report today released by Amnesty International has found that Israel is using widespread destruction along Gaza’s border with Israel in order to create a “buffer zone” along its eastern perimeter. The human rights organization said that this practice should be investigated for the war crimes of “wanton destruction” and “collective punishment.”