Since the emergence of the far-Right coalition, headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tensions between Palestinians and Israelis in the 1967-occupied-territories have intensified to a level not seen since the Al-Aqsa Intifada during the early 2000s. This year has been the deadliest for both Palestinians and Israelis - settlers and soldiers - inside occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, since 2005 according to the United Nations. The year began with a series of violent raids targeting Palestinian refugee camps and cities, primarily in the north of the occupied territory; these raids resulted in massacres where as many as 12 people would be murdered in a single incursion.

At the same time, as the Zionist occupation army was carrying out its campaign of terror on the West Bank’s enclaves, so too was the Israeli government facing a mounting challenge from its own Jewish citizenry. The judicial system overhaul plans of the Netanyahu government ushered in wave after wave of street protests, clashes between protesters, and showcasing the division of the Israeli population. Every Saturday since the beginning of January, Zionist protesters have shown up in large numbers to protest against the plans of the Netanyahu coalition, and following the adoption of one of the pieces of legislation that will make up the legal overhaul, the Israeli economy took a hit, specifically in the area of investments in its lucrative high-tech sector.

The top Israeli ally, the United States government, has also been applying its own pressure on the Israeli Premier’s coalition over its escalatory moves that have been driven primarily by Israeli Ministers belonging to the Religious Zionism alliance, the most notorious of which are Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of which have been snubbed from attending events at the US embassy in occupied Jerusalem. US President Joe Biden seeks to achieve a normalization deal between "Tel Aviv" and Riyadh, which is mostly why Washington is attempting to calm the inter-Zionist feud, as well as tensions inside the '67 occupied territories.

The Zionist Entity has also issued a number of threats in recent weeks, aimed towards the Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The Israelis have occupied land inside Lebanon - the northern Ghajjar village - to which the Lebanese Resistance responded by establishing a tent inside the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. Zionist politicians have threatened to send Lebanon “back to the stone age”, while also claiming that they will carry out assassinations against top Hamas officials. However, despite the strong rhetoric that is emerging for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the reality is that the Zionist regime has little to no options that will work to achieve any significant victory, at least in reinstating the all-important idea of a “deterrence capacity” into the belief systems of Israeli citizens.

It is under this current context that “Israel’s” extremist government is attempting to navigate a multi-front threat from the Resistance axis, where the occupied West Bank - specifically in Jenin - has emerged as a significant front. We have now reached a stage in Jenin where the refugee camp is under the control of the Jenin Brigades, and the city has also to a large extent come under their control. This has allowed for groups like Hamas to set up securing units inside the Jenin refugee camp, which are responsible for providing shelter for Resistance fighters that carry out attacks against settlers and soldiers in the West Bank; normally those who are not from the camp. This, along with the development of greater weapons capabilities, the recruitment of more fighters, and a more structured approach, is making it impossible for the Zionist entity to prevent the West Bank from developing into a formidable resistance front.

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So, as chaos balloons in proportion internally, the Zionist economy takes hits and is hard-stretched to find an answer to the emergence of a new strategy of unifying the fronts - Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank and beyond - against it, the occupation army begins to use more brutal tactics. This appears to have come under immense pressure and is only working to encourage further armed attacks, as a means of retaliation.

Last month, reports emerged that 16 Israeli occupation police force officers had arrested a 22-year-old Palestinian, Arwa Sheikh Ali, from his home in the Shuafat refugee camp. Despite the denial that they had committed the act, photographic evidence made it clear that Arwa had been branded on the face with the Star of David symbol. Not only had the 22-year-old’s lawyer complained about the torture and beatings, but this act was clearly racially motivated. There is then the case of five Palestinian women, in the city of Al-Khalil ("Hebron"), who it was just revealed - in a report published in Haaretz - had been forced to strip naked in front of their children and were made to walk clothless in front of the soldiers. Although it is routine that Palestinians are asked to undress and are humiliated, this case is certainly one of the most extreme in recent years.

The acts of violence perpetrated against Palestinian women and children this year inside the West Bank has been telling, as has the significant uptick in settler assaults against Palestinians and their properties. According to UN statistics, settler attacks on Palestinians have escalated to the point of an average of three recorded events per day in 2023, opposed to one recorded event per day in 2021.

Pogroms against villages and towns like Huwara - near Nablus - and Turmusaya - near Ramallah - where hundreds of cars and homes were burned down by illegal Israeli settlers, have been overseen by the Israeli military too. The Israeli military has also created its own settler-extremist militia, known as the Desert Frontier army unit, in which the majority of its combatants are religious extremist settlers who belong to what is known as the Hilltop Youth terrorist movement.

When Israeli forces enter Palestinian villages, refugee camps and cities, failing to achieve their desired military objectives, they will often open fire on random civilians and execute Palestinians in the street out of frustration. Although this has been happening for the past 70-plus years, the cases have become too numerous to outline at this point, as every week, there are new cases of such reckless murders, clearly emotionally motivated.

The Israeli regime often uses the murder of civilians as an attempt to break the spirits of Palestinians, to turn people against political parties or Resistance groups, or simply to apply pressure in order to slow the pace of the Resistance, yet it seems as if the recent wave of killings have been uncontrolled and without any clear objective. This fits in line with acts such as stripping mothers naked in front of their children and ordering them around at gunpoint, in addition to the act of branding a Palestinian’s face with the Star of David. When a military force cannot deal with its predicament and the army itself loses control of its fighters' actions, a lot more cases like these begin to arise.

When this is also coupled with attempts to provoke the emotions of Palestinians and Muslims around the world, with proposals to change the status quo at al-Aqsa mosque and to assault worshippers there, in addition to frequent pushes by Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to agitate and punish political prisoners, it raises tensions. Yet, this rise in tensions and the provoking of retaliatory armed attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers is not controlled or carefully planned to reach a clear goal. Instead, what we see happening on the ground is a transitional phase, one in which the Zionist regime has been stripped of options, faces a myriad of issues and its individual foot soldiers are acting out their own racist tendencies in an ill-calculated manner. It appears that at this time, the Israelis are behaving as if they are a chicken that has just lost its head.