Since October 7, Israel’s war on Gaza has brought with it a massive escalation in the West Bank. In addition to an uptick in settler violence, there has been an increase in Israeli military activity in the region. Most recently, an Israeli soldier reportedly shot and killed Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest in the Palestinian town of Beita. Just over a week before the murder of Ezgi Eygi, Israel launched an operation that was quickly dubbed the largest West Bank offensive since the Second Intifada.
This operation has taken place predominantly in Jenin, Tubas, and Tulkarm, all Palestinian cities located in Area A of the West Bank. According to the Oslo Accords, Area A falls under the military jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, though Israeli raids in the region are common.
The operation began on August 28 when undercover Israeli soldiers entered refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarm, according to reporting by Middle East Eye. Israeli troops also reportedly entered the city of Tubas via helicopter, leading a military ground assault in the Far’a refugee camp, killing at least four people, including an UNRWA employee.
Since the launch of this offensive, Israeli forces have killed nearly forty people, more than twenty of whom were from Jenin, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Government officials from Jenin have stated that the Israeli military has destroyed at least 70 percent of the city’s roads since the beginning of the operation, which Israel has named “Summer Camps.” The municipality also reported that twenty kilometers of water and sewage networks, communication, and electricity cables were all demolished by Israeli troops.
In Area C, which falls under full Israeli control and consists of rural Palestinian communities and Israeli settlements, violence continues to be carried out by civilian settlers as well as by soldiers. While the West has taken some measures to punish violence by Israeli settlers, it has failed to respond to violence by the Israeli military.
With settler violence skyrocketing since October 7, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have all placed sanctions on several violent settlers. These sanctions include travel bans, freezing assets, and blocking the provision of funds. . In at least one instance, an Israeli bank closed the account of one of the settlers under sanctions. The most recent target of these sanctions is not an individual, but the non-profit organization HaShomer Yosh, a far-right NGO that helps settlers “by providing agricultural and security equipment and responding in times of emergency.” Students at Ariel University, the only Israeli University in the Occupied West Bank, receive academic credits for volunteering with HaShomer Yosh.
In its statement against the organization, the U.S. State Department linked HaShomer Yosh to attacks against the Palestinian village of Zanuta, which is located in the southern West Bank. The residents of Zanuta fled settler violence shortly after October 7, but were able to return to their homes in August.
Though the U.K. suspended certain arms shipments to Israel earlier this month, violence carried out by Israeli military forces has largely gone unchecked throughout the last eleven months. During her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has maintained hardline support for Israel and has not shown any inclination to limit military aid. Canada has also resisted calls by humanitarian groups to “halt all arms to Israel.”
While sanctions against extremist settlers are undoubtedly an important step in curtailing Israeli violence, consequences must also extend to the state. The current state of affairs implies that, to the West, violence is acceptable as long as the perpetrator is a state actor.
Until sanctions are imposed on the state itself, sanctions against individual settlers, and even against registered organizations, are a slap on the wrist to Israel that emboldens the government to use violence.