Israeli forces increased attacks in the West Bank as it continued to pound Gaza with airstrikes after the Hamas attack earlier this month. 

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the country is entering the next stage of the military operation and it is his goal to minimize the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war.

Israeli forces on Sunday continued to target Gaza, two airports in Syria, and a mosque in the occupied West Bank, The Associated Press reported. The mosque is located in Jenin and was identified by Israel as a “terrorist compound.”

“The IDF & ISA just conducted an aerial strike on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist compound in the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin. Recent IDF intel revealed that the Mosque was used as a command center to plan and execute terrorist attacks against civilians,” the IDF posted on X.

Two people died in the strike on Al-Ansar mosque, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel said the two belonged to Islamic Jihad groups and they had been planning an attack, the BBC reported. The report noted that it is rare that Israel uses airpower to strike in the West Bank and it is only the second time that such an attack occurred. 

The Palestinian Authority said a total of 89 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the outbreak of fighting. Two additional people were killed in the West Bank in the overnight hours on Sunday. There were also another seven killed during raids on the Nur Al Shams refugee camp. About 25 additional people were injured in the raid who mostly had gunshot wounds. 

“Ambulances are being detained by occupying forces with injured people inside,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement. 

TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that the West Bank is not under Hamas rule, but Israeli rule since 2007 when they locked the Palestinians into an open-air concentration camp that they are not allowed to leave or enter. 

Israel has now placed the entire West Bank under lockdown since the Hamas attack and has imposed travel restrictions in the region while increasing raids in Palestinian towns and has reportedly doubled the number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons to over 10,000 in the two weeks since the war started, according to Al Jazeera. 

About 4,000 laborers from Gaza have been arrested while working in Israel, and these individuals are being held in military bases, where they are allegedly subjected to abuse.

“Prisoners are subjected to starvation and thirst; they are prevented from accessing their medicine, specifically for those suffering from chronic illnesses that require regular medication,” Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees, said, according to Al Jazeera. The conditions inside these facilities got worse when electricity and water was cut off. (See “DUH-MOCK-RACY: ISRAEL HOLDING OVER 1,200 DETAINEES—MAINLY PALESTINIANS—WHO HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED,” 8 Aug 2023.)

An Israeli human rights group said in August that Israel has about 1,200 Palestinians detained who have not had a trial and don’t even know the reason they’re being held because of a murky law that allows them to be held on secret charges.

These inmates can see their time in custody increased indefinitely without any explanation. Israel has justified the detention in the name of fighting terrorism. The procedure is called “preventive detention.”

Prior to the Hamas attack, over 5,500 Palestinians were detained in Israeli prisons, including 160 children.

Palestinian inmates often resort to hunger strikes to protest the horrid living conditions. (See “HUNGER STRIKER DEATH SPARKS ROCKET EXCHANGE BETWEEN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL,” 9 May 2023.)

Amnesty International said the recent death of Khader Adnan, a senior figure in Islamic Jihad, is an example of Israel’s cruel treatment of Palestinian prisoners and a “reminder of the deadly cost that Palestinians pay for challenging Israel’s apartheid and a military justice system rigged against them.” (See “APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL CLAMPING DOWN ON PALESTINIANS” 26 Apr 2022, “AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: ISRAEL’S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS AMOUNTS TO APARTHEID” 8 Feb 2022, and “ISRAEL KILLS 3 MORE PALESTINIANS DURING ANOTHER DEADLY WEEK” 14 Mar 2023.)

We remind our readers that Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth told The New York Times in May 2021 that the “oppression of Palestinians there has reached a threshold and a performance that meets the definitions of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.”

We also remind our readers that in the 1967 six-day war, Israel invaded and seized Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights, expelling some 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, while gaining stolen territory that was three and a half times its original size. To date, some 670,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which states, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”