You cannot understand the war in Gaza – where the international press cannot enter – without touring the West Bank and visiting Hebron, especially. The citizens of the strip who have seen their homes and lives destroyed are as Palestinian as those in the West Bank and many have family ties in both enclaves. Both occupied territories are separated by less than a hundred kilometers. The Gazan cities now destroyed by Israeli bombs were like those in the West Bank: chaotic cities in development and full of contrasts, like those of any Arab country.
There are streets of Ramallah where the concentration of Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, BMW or other high-end cars collides with the poverty of its refugee camp; In Nablus or Bethlehem there are fee-paying schools, modern shopping centers and trendy cafes; In Jenin there is even a luxury hotel built by an emigrant who made his fortune in the Emirates.
These are realities unknown to the majority of Israelis, who have never visited Palestine and who have gone from distrust towards the Palestinians, to fear and hatred after the terrorist attack by Hamas, an Islamist movement that they equate with the entire Palestinian population. However, although the armed wings of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other political groups operate in the West Bank, armed civilians are not seen on the streets, unlike what happens in Israel.
At all checkpoints to enter the West Bank from Israel there is a large red sign three meters high that warns Israelis that crossing this checkpoint poses a “danger to their lives.” However, some 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – in 279 settlements, which are illegal according to international law and half also according to Israeli regulations, which only recognizes 127 of them, since the other 152 are the so-called outposts. outposts or wild colonies, which the ultranationalists do not stop installing.
The number of settlers was around 200,000 before the Oslo agreements of 1993, which divided the West Bank into three areas: A, under the exclusive control of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA); B, governed by the ANP but with Israeli military control; and C, managed exclusively by Israel. Today, more than 60% of the occupied territory is area C, which has been growing as settlements with roads and access closed to Palestinians have increased. Now, in addition, military checkpoints have multiplied inside areas A and B, with roads and accesses cut off without prior notice.
One of the fears expressed by the international community is that Israel will take advantage of the Gaza war to emulate the West Bank model and confine the Gazans who survive the massacre in a smaller space than the current occupied territory, where there were no settlers, since They were withdrawn after the Oslo agreements. A proposal that Beniamin Netanyahu's government sent these days to the Arab countries with which it maintains relations went in that direction, with the creation of "buffer areas."
As Palestinians watch on television the massacre of their compatriots in Gaza, tension increases in the West Bank, where every day the army carries out raids to carry out arrests, most of them preventive to remove from circulation those they have registered as sympathizers of Hamas or the Jihad that “have not done anything,” as the president of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Abdallah Zghari, explains to La Vanguardia in Ramallah.
This association estimates the number of detainees since October 7 at 3,660; 130, minors. There are nearly 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
In this low-intensity war in the West Bank, military incursions leave people dead almost every day, most of them in one of the 19 refugee camps where bulldozers precede the soldiers, destroying homes and leaving the urban fabric destroyed.
The army and the settlers – to a lesser extent – have already killed 265 Palestinians since the Hamas attack, 479 so far this year – a hundred minors – the bloodiest since the second Intifada.
The actions of the troops are often recorded on video, such as the murder of an 8-year-old boy in Jenin, on November 29, who was unarmed and posed no threat to the soldiers. However, no judicial investigation is open.
The organization Doctors Without Borders is preparing for a health scenario similar to that of Gaza in the West Bank and has incorporated personnel with experience in armed conflicts, such as Enrique García, coordinator of this NGO in Hebron. “We are preparing for the scenario that we see as most likely to happen in this area, a total blockade very similar to what is happening now in Jenin but harder,” he tells La Vanguardia at the organization's headquarters in Hebron. “We are preparing for the entire West Bank area to be blocked,” adds García, who recognizes that it is a maximum approach.”
“The idea is to have a health structure to respond to a humanitarian emergency without the need for external support for several months,” he adds, explaining that his plan is based on “establishing medical islands that can communicate internally.”
Hebron is an area full of settlements, even in the city, the only one in the West Bank that is divided, with a check point in the center to access a neighborhood where a thousand Jews and 35,000 Arabs live, subject to tight control.
The Minister of Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvir, lives in one of the settlements near the center.
“The settlers are becoming more and more aggressive, there are conflicts every day,” says García. “They are patrolling the areas all the time, harassing the Palestinians,” he adds, although he assures that the army is generally present to avoid incidents. “Depending on the army group, the soldiers support the settlers or limit them, although now they are putting limits on them,” he says.
García explains that the settlers' usual procedure consists of "shooting" Palestinian farmers, "burning their houses, or killing their livestock to scare them into leaving" and in this way keep their lands and expand the settlements. Many times they kill them.
In the West Bank, where 3.3 million people live – including East Jerusalem –, there is a warlike atmosphere, just as in Israel. As in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, in Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus or in Bethlehem without tourists, many shops and restaurants work at half speed and close earlier than usual. The hotels are almost empty. People save and fear that, after what is happening in Gaza, Netanyahu will come after them.
So close and yet so far. The resentment between Palestinians and Israelis is only getting worse.
