Palestinian factions call for mobilization in defense of West Bank as clashes rage

The Cradle, August 28, 2024 — 

Several West Bank resistance factions are currently confronting Israeli troops in the camps and streets of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas

The Committee of National and Islamic Forces in Gaza, consisting of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, and several other factions, has called on all Palestinian people to confront the ongoing Israeli attack on the occupied West Bank. 

“This aggression is an extension of the war of extermination and displacement against the Palestinian people and their land,” the committee said in a statement, adding that the “resistance is steadfast and will thwart the occupation’s goals.”

The committee mourned those who were killed in the West Bank on 27 August. It also called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its affiliated security services to “carry out its duties to protect the Palestinian people” and “take the initiative to the field of honor and dignity and confront the Zionists and their settler gangs.” 

It called on all Palestinians to “mobilize for a general confrontation and open engagement with the enemy to defend the land and identity and support our people in the northern West Bank.” 

In a separate statement, Hamas called on every Palestinian “in every place in our occupied land” to escalate resistance against Israel. 

The Israeli army launched its largest operation in the occupied West Bank in over two decades early on 28 August, raiding Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas with hundreds of troops and launching airstrikes on the three cities, considered major hotbeds of resistance in the territory.

At least nine Palestinians have been killed since the operation – dubbed “Camps of Summer” – began. The operation is expected to last several days.

Israel’s Foreign Minister has called for forced evacuations of civilians across the West Bank, as has been done in Gaza.

According to Palestinian journalist Azzam Abu al-Adas, Israeli forces turned a shop in the Faraa camp near Tubas into a detention and interrogation center. 

The West Bank branches of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and the PIJ’s Quds Brigades, as well as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and other groups, have been confronting the Israeli army in the camps of Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas since the incursions started at midnight on Tuesday. 

“Our fighters, in coordination with other resistance factions, are engaged in fierce clashes to repel the ongoing occupation aggression in the Faraa camp (near Tubas), Tulkarem, and Jenin. They are targeting enemy forces and their vehicles with machine guns and explosive devices, achieving direct hits,” the Qassam Brigades’ West Bank branch said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon. 

The Quds Brigades Jenin branch, known as the Jenin Brigade, said in a statement that it “targeted enemy forces and military reinforcements with a high-explosive device, and our heroes continue to target enemy forces with heavy barrages of bullets, achieving direct hits.”

Footage on social media showed an Israeli army bulldozer in Jenin being struck by an explosive device. 

Unconfirmed reports state that an Israeli soldier was wounded by the resistance in the Faraa camp south of Tubas.