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The Israeli government has been signalling plans to annex the West Bank as its military campaign there intensifies, writes Munjed Jado from Ramallah for Ahram weekly newspaper .

As the Israeli Occupation Forces continue their assaults against towns and cities across the West Bank, particularly in the northern part, many Palestinian organisations, both official and popular, have expressed their growing fears of further aggression and genocide against the Palestinian people.

The attacks in the north of the West Bank have been growing over the past six days, and extending into the south of the West Bank more recently, and the fears have been exacerbated by the international community’s silence and the lack of tangible steps to halt the violence, which has already claimed the lives of approximately 41,000 Palestinians and left 100,000 injured.

The Israeli military has announced the commencement of a large-scale operation in the West Bank. The Israeli media has reported that the army has initiated a major operation at the brigade level in the north of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, including the encirclement of hospitals to prevent the injured from receiving medical attention.

It has further revealed that the operation is being accompanied by significant aerial support, encompassing the Jenin and Noor Al-Shams Refugee camps, alongside an operation in the Faria Refugee Camp in Tubas. The reports indicate ongoing clashes in these three camps and the involvement of undercover agents (musta’arabim) in the operation.

According to an Israeli media platform citing sources within the Israeli army, the present military operation in the West Bank is the largest in 22 years. The report added that thousands of soldiers have been mobilised for the operation, which is expected to last several days.

Palestinian fears have escalated in recent days over the potential extension of the crimes and genocide perpetrated by the Israeli military in Gaza to the West Bank.

 Such fears have intensified following statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening, during which he presented a map of historical Palestine excluding the West Bank.

This is being taken as an indication of Israel’s intention to annex the West Bank either through its attacks on West Bank cities, including the use of aircraft to bomb civilian targets, or through political decisions that empower Israeli settlers to demolish Palestinian homes, seize land, and establish settlements, while besieging and forcibly displacing Palestinians from their towns, villages, and camps.

Many Palestinians in the West Bank are expressing growing fears for their future and for that of their children, with these increasing following the atrocities committed in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has focused its operations in Jenin and Tulkarm.

These attacks have reportedly been so damaging as to reduce these areas almost to mediaeval conditions.

Jenin Governor Ahmed Abu Al-Rub said that Jenin has been enduring a brutal Israeli assault reminiscent of the Nakba of 1948 and continuing the ongoing genocide. He said that the occupation forces have divided the city and refugee camp area into four security zones, targeting each one individually.

The assaults have impacted all aspects of civilian life, including the destruction of infrastructure, attacks on hospitals and medical centres, and assaults on homes, resulting in 12 deaths and counting.

He highlighted that the Israeli attacks on Jenin are massive and unprecedented, targeting people, resources, and institutions as part of Israeli plans to eliminate the Palestinian presence on the ground.

The occupation seeks to forcibly displace Palestinian residents, he said, with Israeli soldiers occupying homes, setting up interrogation centres, expelling inhabitants, and compelling them to leave their homes.

The soldiers were targeting health centres, hospitals, and ambulances, he said, making it difficult or impossible to reach and transport the injured to medical facilities and complicated by the destruction of water systems and shortages of medications.

He said the occupation forces were targeting journalists and called on the international community to act to halt the aggression against Jenin and other Palestinian towns and cities.

The Palestinians were not seeking a ceasefire, he said, as this would indicate that the conflict was between two equal parties, while in fact the Israeli army was attacking an unarmed people.

There were increasing fears among Jenin residents of being singled out by the Israeli military and settlers amid the escalating attacks on West Bank cities.

The right-wing Israeli government, with its extremist ministers supporting settlement activities, has no longer hidden its racist agendas. Extremist Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has openly declared his intention to build a Jewish synagogue within the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, for example, asserting that the Jews have the same rights to the mosque as Muslims.

Political activist Intisar Al-Awwad commented that Ben-Gvir’s plan to build the synagogue at the Al-Aqsa Mosque was part of a broader scheme for the division of the Mosque and the establishment of the so-called “Third Temple.”

This shows that the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is not just a territorial dispute but also a religious war for Israel, with the Israeli government planning to displace Palestinians from what extremists like Ben-Gvir perceive to be Jewish land.

Al-Awwad said that the Arab and Islamic world must awaken in defence of its third-holiest religious site.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has also recently made provocative statements calling for the destruction of Palestinian refugee camps. In remarks reported by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Katz said that the West Bank should be treated similarly to Gaza, proposing the temporary evacuation of the Jenin and Tulkarm camps to eliminate what he described as the “infrastructure of terrorism” within them.

In a tweet on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Katz said that “this is a war on everything, and we must win it.”

Katz’s statements echo those made by Yisrael Gantz, head of the Yesha Settlement Council, who suggested that the Noor Al-Shams Camp should be treated like the Nuseirat Camp in Gaza, warning of dire consequences if similar actions are not taken. This rhetoric appears to be intended to justify potential crimes in West Bank camps and cities.

Mohamed Al-Jaafari, coordinator of Palestinian Factions in the southern West Bank, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the ongoing Israeli military offensive in the northern West Bank towns of Tulkarm, Jenin, and Tubas, coupled with the siege on Hebron and Bethlehem in the south, and threats from Ben-Gvir to demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a synagogue in Jerusalem, constituted a direct declaration of war against the Palestinians.

He added that efforts to curtail the Israeli army’s authority in the West Bank, in preparation for its possible annexation, reflected an attempt on the part of Israel to remove the occupied status from the area, including the settlements.

By transferring these territories to the Israeli civil authorities, they would be subjected to Israeli sovereignty through the same laws applying to Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, effectively annexing these lands, the settlements included, into Israel itself.

This aligns with Netanyahu’s presentation of a historical map of Palestine excluding the West Bank, indicating a systematic plan led by Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet members.

Al-Jaafari urged Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab and Islamic countries to be vigilant about the actions of the current Israeli government. He emphasised that silence could lead to the further suffering and displacement of the Palestinian people, warning that the situation in the West Bank could escalate into a genocide similar to that occurring in Gaza.