War crimes in the West Bank and the PA’s weakness will end with annexation

Massacres and war crimes are being committed by the Israeli occupation army across the occupied West Bank. Refugee camps have been destroyed and their residents displaced. It is genocide in all but name. But what does the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah do? It has issued a weak statement, while continuing to collaborate on security matters with the self-same occupation forces.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the bombings committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Jenin and Tulkarm camps, including their bombing of large neighbourhoods of the Jenin camp, in a brutal scene that reflects the extent of the destruction that the Gaza Strip has been subjected to, and embodies one of the manifestations of the war of genocide and displacement against our people,” said the PA.

From the time of the Oslo Accords in the early nineties which brought it into existence, the PA has been unable to protect the Palestinian people.

A shocking number of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem have been arrested and killed, and the number of settlers and settlements — all illegal under international law — has grown fourfold according to Palestinian and Israeli reports. There are now nearly 800,000 settlers in the West Bank while Palestinians see their homes seized and demolished, and they are deported. Despite all of this, the PA and its president are content to adopt the “peaceful” political route and issue meaningless statements that are devoid of any value on the ground.

The world only respects the strong and the resolute; only loud voices get heard. The weak and lazy who agree to all requests and orders from their paymasters without any resistance become a tool deaf and blind to the suffering of their fellow citizens; they abandon national interests in exchange for personal gains.

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Before the eyes and ears of the world, and perhaps with the full knowledge of the PA, half of the residents of Tulkarm camp in the northern West Bank have been forced to flee from their homes. About 90 per cent of the residents of Jenin camp were forced to leave into the unknown.

Soldiers and settlers attack citizens in their homes, and then vandalise and burn their homes and property. The Israelis have begun to change the features and demographics of the refugee camps. The tens of thousands of PA security forces are nowhere to be seen when Israeli soldiers and settlers are on the rampage.

The war is now overt and targets all Palestinians, not just those in the camps. For example, in Tamun and Qabatiya, residents have been displaced to schools, organisations and institutions that have opened their doors to them. Families are still besieged inside Tulkarm camp without electricity or water due to the Israeli military presence, especially snipers. About 60,000 students are without education, and some homes have been turned into military barracks.

Everything that the occupation regime is doing in the West Bank amounts to a war crime or crime against humanity; everything.

Every settler is a war crime; every settlement is a war crime; every Palestine arrested and taken into 1948-occupied Palestine (so-called Israel) is a war crime. The list goes on. The occupation regime’s aim is to annex the West Bank and displace Palestinians from their lands to expand the number and size of settlements.

Ultimately, the regime will turn on the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, because it will have fulfilled its collaborative role. Until then, it will do anything to stay in power and collect its money, but the throne is wobbling, its legs rotten and ready to collapse.

Such an authority cannot be trusted with the Palestinian national project and will cause great harm to Jordanian security as a result of its weakness, corruption and the transformation of most of its leaders into servants of the occupation regime. It is time to wake up before it is too late, although it probably is too late, as personal interests have blinded many from seeing the reality.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Assabeel on 3 February 2025

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