Escalation in West Bank Signals Risk of Further Atrocities

In recent days Israeli security forces in the West Bank have reportedly blocked medical workers from getting to people in need, dug up roads making them impassable, and used airstrikes and drones launching missiles to kill dozens of Palestinians, including children.

Taken together, these moves represent a worrying escalation of the use of force in the West Bank.

Israeli officials have described their actions as a counterterrorism operation, but Foreign Minister Israel Katz has gone further, suggesting Israel “must deal with the threat [in the West Bank] just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents.”

This escalation comes within the context of a decades-long military occupation in which the Israeli government has approved and funded the growth of illegal settlements and enabled settler violence against Palestinians, including by providing settlers with weapons.

The International Court of Justice in July ruled that Israel is committing apartheid and ordered Israel to evacuate all settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The opposite is underway. More than 5,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been displaced by either Israeli military demolitions or settler violence since October 2023.

Even in the context of occupation, international human rights law applies to Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians in the West Bank.

Should fighting in the West Bank reach the level of an armed conflict, international humanitarian law for the methods and means of warfare could become applicable there. But it does not do so now.

Therefore, Israeli forces have to comply with the legal rules governing law enforcement, which permits the use of lethal force only in very limited circumstances and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. 

But the United Nations has found that Israel is reverting to “more lethal war-like tactics.” After years without airstrikes, the UN says 95 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, with 41 of those (almost half) killed in August alone.

Any intentional use of lethal force that is not strictly necessary in each and every case to prevent an imminent threat to life, is inappropriate as a tool of law enforcement.

According to the UN, Israeli airstrikes in refugee camps have killed children in their homes and on the street, and a man preparing milk for his child in his kitchen.

Governments like the United States, that have committed to conduct atrocity risk assessments in the face of escalating violence, should act on the warning signs in the West Bank and mobilize other governments to respond as well.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and Stéphane Séjourné, the minister for Europe and foreign affairs of France, have been publicly expressing concern about the latest escalation, which is a start.

The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and Canada already sanctioned some Israeli settlers. There should be sanctions on those ministers responsible for the unlawful use of lethal force on the West Bank, including Itamar Ben Gvir who has been distributing weapons to settlers and directing police to not enforce laws against violent settlers.

For months, the world’s eyes have been on Gaza, but atrocity prevention is needed in the West Bank too.