Israeli forces withdraw from West Bank’s Qabatiya after two days of ‘collective punishment’

Israeli forces have withdrawn from the occupied West Bank city of Qabatiya after a two-day military incursion that local officials described as “collective punishment” following a successful resistance operation.

The assault that wound down on Saturday targeted Qabatiya in the northern West Bank and resulted in extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure, various Palestinian media outlets reported.

According to Mayor Ahmad Zakarneh, the episode saw Israeli troops seal off the city from surrounding towns, imposing a total curfew, erecting dirt barriers on secondary roads, and bulldozing streets, thus effectively paralyzing daily life and economic activity.

Throughout the incursion, the forces raided around 50 homes, converting six into military posts, vandalizing property, and occupying a local school. Dozens of residents were detained in the course of the incursion.

Zakarneh said troops deliberately damaged power generators, severed water, electricity, and telecommunications lines, destroyed household contents, and sealed the family home of the Palestinian accused of carrying out the resistance operation a week earlier.

With Qabatiya’s population of approximately 33,000 confined under curfew, residents were prevented from accessing farms and factories, leading to spoilage of agricultural produce and widespread disruption to livelihoods.

Kamal Abu al-Rab, governor of the nearby city of Jenin, denounced the Israeli regime for enforcing “collective punishment” against the city’s residents.

The incursion followed a multi-stage resistance operation carried out on Friday by Ahmad Abu al-Rab, a resident of Qabatiya, that reportedly resulted in the death of two illegal Israeli settlers.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office reported in a statement that Israeli authorities extended Abu al-Rab’s detention by 11 days and transferred him, while wounded, from hospital to interrogation by Shin Bet, the regime’s internal spy agency.

The statement added that his brothers were detained too and the entrance to his family home in Qabatiya was sealed.

The withdrawal from Qabatiya came amid a broader Israeli military campaign across the occupied West Bank.

Since January, Israeli forces have been conducting large-scale operations at multiple refugee camps, beginning in Jenin, accompanied by systematic destruction and mass displacement.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been uprooted this year, particularly in Jenin as well as the cities of Tulkarm and Tubas, which are likewise located in the northern West Bank.

Army-backed settler violence has also surged in recent months, with Palestinian farmland repeatedly torched, civilians attacked, and land seizures and illegal settlement expansion continuing.

Late last month, the Israeli army, Shin Bet, and police announced the launch of a wide-ranging operation across the West Bank, aimed at what they described as rooting out “terror.”

Earlier this month, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned escalating violence by the settlers against Palestinian civilians and their property, stressing the need to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law across the occupied territory, including East al-Quds.

His remarks followed reports of further settler attacks that had injured Palestinian civilians in the cities of al-Khalil in the southern West Bank and Nablus, located on its northern side, amid what rights groups have called a growing risk of ethnic cleansing across the occupied territory.

Since October 2023, when the regime launched a war of genocide on the Gaza Strip, more than 1,085 Palestinians have been killed and over 10,700 injured throughout the West Bank due to Israeli military and settler attacks, with nearly 21,000 Palestinians detained.

Amid the overall situation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has warned that a third intifada (Palestinian uprising) was approaching, predicting a significant rise in Palestinian impatience with decades of Israeli occupation and deadly aggression.

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