Eye on the Middle East | A West Bank watershed
Why did Israel open a fresh front in the West Bank?
Beginning on Wednesday, August 28, at least three brigades of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been conducting what is the largest Israeli military assault on the West Bank since 2002. Mounting counter-terror (CT) operations against key leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups, especially in Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, and Tulkairm, the IDF operation marks a fresh expansion of its war in Gaza. While the operation (which includes airstrikes) has been justified on the counter-terror platform, the IDF assault has featured large-scale destruction of urban areas – the IDF has torn up roads in Tulkarem, surrounded Jenin, and blocked access to key hospitals. The severity of the ongoing operation forced Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to cut short his trip to Riyadh, and hastily return to Ramallah. So, why would Israel open a fresh front in the West Bank?
The promised land
While the scale of the IDF’s current operation is unprecedented for this century, Israel has been consistently conducting counter-terror raids in the West Bank since October 7. Across the last decade, Israel has conducted several such operations, especially in Jenin, often causing mass casualties while also eliminating key militants. For Israel, its calculus for the West Bank differs from that for the Gaza Strip, mattering much more both symbolically and substantially. Until October 7 triggered a return of large-scale Israeli military presence in the Strip, Israel has refrained from re-occupying Gaza since 2006 when it pulled both troops as well as settlers from the Strip. While exchanges of air strikes and rockets have continued between Israel and Hamas in Gaza across the last decade, the former has usually stopped short of invading Gaza (coming closest to doing so last in 2014). Even presently, Israel's focus in Gaza is based on security; it envisions the presence of a 'credible force' within Gaza, whether Israeli or otherwise.
In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, Israel’s objective has always been an expansion of its de facto control, gradually reducing the possibility of a Palestinian State. Its current operations are part of only a series of other steps in the West Bank that Israel has taken this year. Across February, March, and July this year, Israel announced the appropriation/seizure of 2.6, 8, and 12.7 square km of land in the West Bank. The lattermost of these, in the Jordan Valley, was the largest appropriation in more than 30 years. In the years since 1967, Israel has built at least 160 settlements in the occupied West Bank, housing around 700,000 settlers. Beyond the inherent need to expand its occupation and strengthen its fait accompli on the ground, Israel has also used settlement build-ups as a form of resistance to international criticism of its occupation, as well as retribution for Palestinian militant attacks. For instance, an Israeli minister justified the announcement of around 3,400 new settler houses in March, as a response to an attack in Maale Adnum.
In July, shortly before the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation illegal, the latter announced plans for about 5,300 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank. Moreover, while Prime Minister Netanyahu (along with other right-wing ministers) has occasionally touted the idea of formally annexing the West Bank in the past, his government has taken key steps in recent years to expand Israel’s de facto annexation. For instance, as Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard argues, Israel has transferred key administrative powers over the West Bank from the military to the civilian leadership; specifically to far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich. While Netanyahu himself has promoted the application of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and teased “annexation with consent” from the former Trump administration, Smotrich has been far more vocal. He declared as recently as June 2024, that he was working to make “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) an integral part of the Israeli State.
While the Holy City of Jerusalem (whose Eastern sector Israel illegally occupies along with the rest of the West Bank) makes the Bank’s annexation important for Israel, IDF operations like the present one are also important tactically. The elimination of a significant number of militants, along with air strikes on Fatah targets even in other regional states, shows Israel’s growing conflation of Hamas and Fatah (regardless of their new-found unity through the Beijing Declaration). Unlike Hamas in Gaza, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has long cooperated with Israel for security operations against militants in the West Bank. With Israel now mounting a destructive campaign unilaterally, it further erodes Fatah’s credibility and capability as an efficient guardian of Palestinian interests. In any case, Fatah’s popularity has been steadily dwindling, with Mahmoud Abbas himself gradually losing political clout.
Fresh tests
Unlike support for Israel’s fight against Hamas (notwithstanding growing pressure for a ceasefire), Western support for Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank has not been forthcoming. The Biden administration, which undid the Trump administration's effective legitimisation of Israeli settlement activity, imposed fresh sanctions on “extremist” Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Wednesday (the Hashomer Yosh group). Japan had earlier imposed its own sanctions on Israeli settlers. UN data estimates that in addition to the thousands killed in Gaza, at least 628 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers since October 7.
Given Israel’s non-compliance with international directions, along with its active pushback against ICJ verdicts and UN resolutions, the present IDF operation with its large scale and scope evidently unsettles both regional and global actors. The UK has expressed “deep concern”, the German Foreign Ministry has asserted that “terror cannot be fought by blocking roads, houses, power grids, and access to hospitals”, the European Union’s foreign policy chief has called for sanctions against key Israeli ministers, and multiple UN bodies have condemned the operations. However, such criticism is far from unprecedented. The key test is for regional Arab states. While the Arab League has condemned Israel’s ongoing West Bank operations, Saudi Arabia and UAE condemned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s comments about building a synagogue at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Regardless of whether these states verbally criticise Israeli actions, the West Bank carries significant value not just for Israel but also for the Muslim world; more specifically, the Arab street. Riyadh’s specific condemnation of Israeli settlements and its fresh calls to sanction Israel show an increased deference to the question of Palestine. The Kingdom’s and other Arab states’ ability to reconcile their economic need for ties with Israel with their commitment to the theological fundamentals of supporting Palestinian sovereignty, increasingly hangs in the balance. While a ceasefire in Gaza will give these states a shot in the arm for continued normalization, Israeli adventurism in the West Bank and Jerusalem will undoubtedly pose fresh risks. For Palestine itself, Israel’s unimpeded operations in the West Bank expose fractured Palestinian leadership, despite fresh unity, casting greater doubt over politically negotiated solutions that can endure.s
Bashir Ali Abbas is a research associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi, and a South Asia Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center, Washington DC. The views expressed are personal.