Israel’s Raid on Nablus Proves Willingness of More Young Palestinians to Die in an Unwinnable Battle
www.haaretz.com
Nablus is in shock, once again. Wednesday afternoon this city in the northern West Bank buried 11 of its sons, while 100 others have been injured, more than half of them wounded by gunfire, with four believed to be in critical condition.
Lengthy probes by journalists and field investigators are necessary to obtain the full picture of Israel’s military raid in Nablus in the light of day Wednesday, with the streets filled with people. Until these investigations are done, if they’re done, what we’ll remember are the police and army’s immediate announcements of “massive gunfire” from armed Palestinians and “exchanges of fire.”
What will echo are statements from the authorities on how “senior commanders in this or that organization were killed,” and “the possibility is being examined that the dead Palestinians had been shot by terrorists” – as was claimed after journalist Shereen Abu Akleh was killed, and was claimed about Majida Abid, who was killed after the army and Border Police raided the Jenin refugee camp late last month.
The standard justification that the dead had “planned shooting attacks” is enough to prevent most Israelis from wondering about the necessity of such raids. After all, Israelis are certain that the intelligence agencies like the Shin Bet security service know everything. What they don’t know is which young, despairing, angry and unorganized Palestinian men are planning revenge. They only know that they exist.
As usual, the official Israeli report leaves out many details and creates a distorted picture of equal military forces and “fighting,” an almost symmetrical “exchange of fire.” In reality, such raids involve a huge Israeli military force, and the soldiers can’t be seen because they hide in sniper positions, while others wait inside their very well protected vehicles.
The Palestinian gunmen, meanwhile, did not (and could not) have enough time even for shooting practice. This TikTok generation isn’t good at operating in the underground; it seems they’re not very familiar with guerrilla tactics. For example, Nablus residents told Haaretz that on October 25, men in Nablus fired more shots in the air during the funerals of the five killed than during the Israeli raid on the Old City earlier that day.
A man who visited the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho – where members of the Lion’s Den have been jailed in what is known as preventive detention (to avoid arrest or killing by Israel) – told Haaretz that some members don’t consider the reasoning behind their status as “wanted men” to be weighty. That is, they’re convinced that the acts Israel attributes to them would have produced a minor sentence in an Israeli military court.
On Wednesday too, the Palestinians reported that the army prevented ambulances and rescue teams from reaching the Nablus fighting by firing shots or tear gas, and that soldiers shot toward journalists. Such warning shots at rescue teams is nothing new. The novelty is that in tandem with the army’s raid on the Jenin refugee camp last month, the army informed the Red Crescent in advance – via the Palestinian security coordination committee – that ambulances wouldn’t be allowed to come too close to the scene.
We still don’t know whether a similar announcement was provided Wednesday in Nablus. The army’s claim that it only asked to coordinate the movement of ambulances is similar to the situation in Gaza during the wars there. The coordination takes so long that the wounded may die in the meantime.
Is this the meaning of the verbal instructions to the Palestinians and the firing at the ambulances without a warning? That the army sees every raid as a wartime situation?
According to the Palestinian reports, the army used drones Wednesday. Drones for monitoring or firing tear gas have become a part of the reality in the West Bank, not just the Gaza Strip. Palestinians know that the army also has drones that shoot bullets, so during every raid people fear not just the invisible soldiers who shoot but also the possible gunfire from flying objects.
Israeli raids – by the army and the police – on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps are routine. In the usual pattern, special forces, mostly from the police, infiltrate under some form of cover before the actual attack.
On Wednesday, according to preliminary reports, at least two trucks were used, disguised to look like they belonged to a Palestinian food company. As usual, they were filled with undercover police who arrived at the east side of the Old City. After them, the very much hated armored jeeps poured into the city, and they of course were the target of stones and other objects that young people rained down on them.
We still don’t know whether the special forces deployed in firing positions in buildings in the city, and if so, in which buildings and how many.
The army and police’s use of vehicles that looked like Palestinian civilian vehicles also isn’t a new tactic – and it also never stops arousing anger. It’s impossible to get used to. It makes people cast doubt on the identity of drivers of similar vehicles and wonder about the ways the seemingly Palestinian trucks reached the police force. People know that at any moment the army might disrupt their daily routine, another example of the untrammeled arrogance of the occupying force and its ability to humiliate cause disarray.
What’s different this time is the timing. Usually, raids for making arrests – or planned killings – of Palestinian gunmen are done at night or very early in the morning. True, the January 26 raid on the Jenin refugee camp began at about 7 A.M. Its timing surprised the residents, but it was early enough so that civilians would stay indoors and not put themselves at risk while the army surrounded a house.
In contrast, in Nablus the people realized that a military attack was underway at about 9:30 A.M., and not in some godforsaken place but near the crowded commercial center. These facts couldn’t have escaped the commanders who ordered the timing. Are we now witnesses to a new model: tens of thousands of people being provoked in broad daylight?
In a statement, the Lion’s Den said six of the 11 dead had been members of the group or Islamic Jihad. The group also expressed its condolences to the families of the four civilians killed, including a 72-year-old man and a 61-year-old man, while a 66-year-old man died later of injuries from tear gas.
The Palestinians, who have announced a day of mourning once again, describe the Israeli raid as a massacre, as they described its predecessor in Jenin last month when 10 Palestinians were killed.
The definition “massacre” is accurate if it implies that when the army wants, it knows how to arrest people without killing them, and without killing unarmed civilians and shaking an entire city. At the same time, this definition blurs one important fact. More and more young Palestinian men are willing to be killed in an unwinnable battle with invisible soldiers who invaded their city. Or they refuse to leave the building where they’re besieged, with the clear knowledge that it will be shelled and collapse on top of them.
The public sees them as brave heroes because they’re giving up their lives while sending a collective message: The military trespassers aren’t guests, and death is preferable to life in prison or acceptance and surrender to the occupier.
Is there a connection between the bloody raids of recent months in Jenin, Jericho and Nablus and the Netanyahu government’s overthrow of the judicial system?
Is there a connection between the raid on Nablus on Wednesday, in broad daylight, and the weakening shekel because of the new government’s coup that it’s determined to advance despite everything?
Is it possible that the person who gave the order to the army and the police Wednesday doesn’t know that a large number of Palestinian deaths brings us even closer to another round of bloodshed?
These too are questions whose answers can’t be found in the army’s press releases.
