There is a rising, bloody Palestinian death toll in the West Bank after two days of Israeli attacks by helicopters, drones and ground forces. In July, the line between law and politics had been sharply drawn when the UN’s top court – the international court of justice (ICJ) – declared that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, is against international law and should end. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that this was a “decision of lies”. He knows power flows from the barrel of a gun. Illegal Israeli acts in the occupied territories are hardening, mostly with complete impunity, into political developments.
The war in Gaza has become a breaking point for the rules-based international order. That is also true in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel argues that it has to take action to protect itself from what it claims are attacks using Iranian-supplied arms. Yet bombing civilians from the skies looks like a way of terrorising a people into submission – and it is increasing. Between 2020 and October 2023, six Palestinians in the area were killed in airstrikes. This week, the UN said that 136 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since October 2023 – a sharp increase. These numbers are obviously dwarfed by the 40,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza, with the majority of those identified being elderly people, children or women.
