Israeli occupation forces intensified their crackdown across the occupied West Bank on Saturday, launching raids, detaining Palestinians, and restricting movement in several towns. Around ten people were arrested during overnight and early morning operations.

Local news agencies reported that three Palestinian youths were detained in Nablus and six others in areas east of Qalqilya. In Tarqumiya, west of al-Khalil, Israeli occupation forces arrested a Palestinian man after he and his family confronted settlers who had attempted to raid their home and steal their livestock.

Raids also targeted al-Bireh and the outskirts of the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah. In Jenin, forces stormed the town of Ya’bad, tearing up streets and sealing its entrances with dirt mounds. IOF also raided the home of Palestinian Mayor Amjad Attatra, turning it into a field interrogation site where residents were held and questioned for hours before being released. Several other homes were ransacked during the operation.

Meanwhile, the invading Israeli units closed the Dotan checkpoint west of Jenin, cutting off the town of Barta’a and its 8,000 residents from the rest of the governorate. As the checkpoint is the town’s only passage, its closure amounts to a complete blockade.

'Israel' exploiting Gaza war to seize West Bank land: NYT

An opinion piece published in The New York Times on Thursday by Philip H. Gordon, former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, sounded the alarm over "Israel's" accelerating "annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank," a project that he argues would bury the prospect of Palestinian statehood and intensify "Israel's" pariah status worldwide.

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While the world's gaze remains fixed on the devastating assault on Gaza, Gordon warns that the Israeli government is exploiting the chaos to push forward a colonial agenda in the West Bank.

He stresses that extreme-right figures in Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, emboldened by US indifference, are seizing the moment to entrench permanent control over territory that belongs to Palestinians.

For decades, Palestinians have seen their land steadily carved away by Israeli settlements. The settler communities, Gordon notes, have ballooned to around 740,000 from just 10,000 in the 1970s, and over a hundred new outposts were established in the past year alone.

The latest flashpoint is the E1 plan, dubbed a "doomsday" settlement by advocates of a "two-state solution", that would physically sever the eastern part of al-Quds from Palestinian cities like Ramallah and Beit Lahm.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich admitted bluntly that the project "buries the idea of a Palestinian state," while Netanyahu declared, "We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us."

Settler violence shielded

The expansion is driven not only by bureaucracy but also by increasing settler violence. Palestinians endure systematic intimidation: destroyed crops, torched cars, water cutoffs, and killings.

The UN has recorded over 1,000 cases this year alone, the highest since monitoring began in 2006. Gordon highlights the case of radical settler Yinon Levi, caught on video shooting activist Awdah Hathaleen. "Israel" delayed returning Hathaleen's body for more than a week, while Levi was quickly released by a court citing insufficient evidence.

The US role looms large. Unlike past administrations, Trump's team has offered cover for "Israel's" "annexation" drive. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described "annexation as not a final thing," while Ambassador Mike Huckabee claimed the US "has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty" in the West Bank.

Read more: 'Israel’s' deliberate policies drive West Bank economy toward collapse