2 Sept 2024
In June 2023, I visited a hospital in Nablus, in the Israel-occupied West Bank, a few hours after it had been surrounded by Israeli troops. The attacks that have been launched on West Bank towns, villages and refugee camps this week are a big escalation but they are still part of a pattern that has been going on for years.
In a statement about the Israeli military assaults in the West Bank, UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutteres was right to say “I strongly condemn the loss of lives, including of children, and I call for an immediate cessation of these operations.”
Richard Burden when he was Chair of MAP in Nablus with Vice Chair Shireen Jayyusi.
Nobody should be fooled by the claims from Israeli ministers that the attacks by Israeli tanks, bulldozers, infantry, drones and fighter jets are all about targeting “terrorist infrastructure”.
The facts of the past year tell a different story: 622 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023; 15 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank and 10 in Israel during the same period. More details about what has been going across the West Bank over the past year can be found in this UN report.
In fact, the spike in Israeli military and settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank has been going on for much longer. In late February last year, for example, hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a rampage in the village of Huwara near Nablus, killing and injuring civilians and torching homes. Even one Israeli military commander called it “a pogrom”. It clearly did not worry the government of Israel too much, though. The response of Bezalel Smotrich, the minister who Netanyahu has put in charge of the West Bank, responded by calling for Huwara to be “wiped out” by the Israeli army.
Remember, the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967 and international law imposes specific responsibilities on Israel as the occupying power.
The reality is that those legal responsibilities are being flagrantly and deliberately violated by the Israeli state.
The Nablus hospital I visited last year had not only been surrounded by Israeli troops. Ambulances had been prevented from getting to the hospital and tear gas had been thrown through hospital windows. Targeting hospitals and other health facilities is contrary to international humanitarian law. There are again reports of ambulances being blocked from reaching the wounded during this week’s attacks, together with the main hospital in Jenin being cut off by Israeli forces. Nablus is one of the towns again under attack this year and my thoughts turn to the doctors, nurses and other staff I met last year.
On 19 July, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s 57 year occupation is itself unlawful and called for it to end.
Until member states of the United Nations – including the US and the UK – take effective action to uphold international law, we will continue to be complicit with the crimes that are taking place.
Richard Burden is a former Labour MP and is a trustee of the Balfour Project.