Alwaght- With intensification of Israeli hardline cabinet's anti-Palestinian actions this year, tensions in the occupied West Bank, the besieged Gaza Strip, and Israeli settlements around them have considerably increased, to an extent that days hardly go without news of tensions.
Part of Israeli escalatory measures include systemic demotion of the Palestinians homes in various villages and cities of the West Bank and their displacement for facilitation of Jewish settlement construction that is underway at a unprecedented pace. Al Watan news website reported that since the start of the year, the Israeli regime destroyed 376 Palestinian houses and properties in the West Bank and occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem). According to this Palestinian news outlet, during this period, 500 letters of mandatory evacuation orders have been sent to Palestinian residents of different areas of the West Bank. Also, in the shadow of Netanyahu's radical new cabinet, the raids of the extremist Israelis on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and harassment of Palestinians by armed settlers have also become far more than before.
In the meantime, reports show that the security policy of the regime has also changed to deal with the Palestinian protests, and the Israeli cabinet has put the policy of preemptive arrests and street execution of Palestinian youth and children on its agenda. Sama news agency recently reported that since the beginning of this year, the number of Palestinian killed at the hands of the Israelis has reached 157, of whom 26 were children.
The Washington Post has recently published a report about killing of the Palestinian citizens, especially the children by the Israeli special forces.
“Israeli military operations have long been a fixture of life here, but they once happened mostly at night, and usually ended in apprehensions. This year, under the most right-wing government in Israeli history, a growing number of incursions have been carried out during the day, in densely packed urban areas such as Jenin,” the Washington Post wrote.
The report examines 15 videos of a bloody Israeli raid on Jenin on March 16 that led to death of 4 Palestinians named Nedhal Khazem, Yousef Sharim, Omar Awadin, and Laway al-Saghir. The Washington Post synchronized 15 videos and reviewed dozens more from March 16, including CCTV footage from surrounding businesses and those belonging to the killing of 13 Palestinians, some of which took nearly a month to surface.
Citing some sources, the newspaper wrote that the Israeli raid of Jenin on March 16 was a violation of the ban on extrajudicial execution. This violation becomes more apparent as Tel Aviv claims that these people were armed but did not pose a threat to the special forces at the time of killing as a large number of civilians were present at the scene of the raid.
“One can say with a degree of confidence that these are extrajudicial executions,” said Philip Alston, who was the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions between 2004 and 2010.
The failure to arrest these two young people became worse when the security forces fired at them a large number of bullets after their killing, he added.
These particular killings were “profoundly unlawful” under international standards, according to Michael Lynk, who served as the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories until last year. He added that the unlawfulness was “heightened by the apparent choice to conduct these targeted killings in a busy civilian market... Each of these two young people that were attacked posed no threats and the Israeli forces could arrest them.”
Actually, it seems that the hardline cabinet has turned to the policy of physically eliminating the Palestinian youths to avoid legal proceedings and also the financial and political price of captivating the Palestinians. Also they seek to terrorize the Palestinian youths in the West Bank whose membership in the sleeper cells of the resistance groups in the West Bank in recent months posed a big security challenge to the Israeli regime.
Palestinian fighters continue their anti-occupation struggle even from the prisons by staging mass hunger strikes, and after release, they return to the resistance ranks even with bigger experience, something having put the Israelis in a confusing situation in the past decades. Now Netanyahu’s cabinet seeks the solution in street executions.
Netanyahu sows wind and shall reap whirlwind
Street execution of Palestinian youths and implementation of genocide policy are not unseen by the Palestinian groups and now they warn that the security of the occupied territories will ultimately fall victim to the tensions escalated by the Israeli cabinet. They assert that this policy not only will not intimidate them, but also they will face tougher resistance response that will cause insecurity deep into the occupied territories and issue a warrant for reciprocal actions against the settlers.
In a statement following death of Alla Khalil who was killed in Southern Al-Khalil on Friday after an operation in the settlement of Tana Omrim, Islamic Jihad Movement said: “The crimes of the Zionist regime expand the resistance to achieve resolute victories in Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
The movement added that the Israeli crimes against Palestinians make the regime's forces and settlers pay a high price.
Hamas Movement expressed condolences for the death of the two Palestinian youths, adding that Israeli crimes only lead to insistence on resistance for liberation of Palestinian from occupation.
“These crimes will lead to the continuation of the path of resistance and revolution until the complete liberation of the land of Palestine, as well as the freedom of Islamic and Christian holy sites and Al-Aqsa Mosque,” the statement read.
Following these crimes, the Israeli leaders, afraid of retaliatory attacks, called on the settlers to stay at home until further notice and close their doors and windows. Authorities also banned traffic in the raid region until further notice, something showing that Palestinian warnings that the street execution policy will backfire and further insecurity and terror will encompass the Israelis and their settlements.
