Israeli forces continue to carry out raids in the occupied West Bank with deadly consequences, including one this weekend that resulted in the deaths of four Palestinian teenagers.

Two of the teens, both 17, were shot in the head and neck, according to Palestinian officials. Another 11 were injured, including a father and daughter who were hit by a military vehicle, The Jerusalem Post reported. 

The paper said the target of the raid was a 25-year-old believed to be behind shooting attacks on IDF troops in the West Bank. Last week, we reported on another raid that resulted in the deaths of another five. (See “4 KILLED, DOZENS WOUNDED IN ISRAELI WEST BANK RAID” (4 Oct 2022). 

The number increased to five after a 12-year-old boy, who was shot in the stomach, succumbed to his wounds two weeks after the incident. The Palestine chapter of Defense for Children International said Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed 25 Palestinians below the age 18 in 2022.

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has documented the increased tension in the region that has resulted in the deaths of more than 114 Palestinians since the beginning of the year. (See “APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL CLAMPING DOWN ON PALESTINIANS,” 26 Apr 2022, “EU’S BORRELL ADMITS KILLING PALESTINIANS DON’T COUNT,” 16 Aug 2022 and “ISRAEL RAIDS AND RANSACKS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND CHURCH” 23 Aug 2022.) The number of deaths is the highest in seven years.

Al Jazeera noted that these raids have become a daily occurrence in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus because they are seen to be increasing their level of resistance to Israeli forces, and are becoming more organized. The report noted that a female Israeli soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting at another refugee camp in East Jerusalem called Shufat, which has been under siege by Israeli troops.

TRENDPOST: The Palestinian Authority accused Israel of waging an all-out war “that did not stop for a single moment,” and appealed to Washington to get Israel to make good on its promise to end “all unilateral measures and to exert serious pressure on Israel to stop its comprehensive war against our Palestinian people before it is too late.”

The Associated Press noted that Israel usually identifies those killed in these raids as criminals, not victims. But as we have noted, killings included an Al Jazeera journalist, and a lawyer who evidently “drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed.”

TRENDPOST: When Ukrainians fight for their homeland, they are called heroes; when Palestinians fight for their homeland, they are called militants in the U.S. media. 

Again, as we note, Israel keeps stealing Palestinian land and no action is taken against them. 

Israel took control of the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war. Since then, in addition to destroying Palestinian houses and buildings on the land they seized, they have been, and continue, to build massive “settlements.”

As reported by Bloomberg in January 2020:

“Almost a tenth of Israel’s Jews live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, outside their country’s recognized borders. The population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has grown four times faster than Israel’s itself since 1995. Settlers regard themselves as inhabiting land that is rightfully theirs.

“A different view is held by the International Court of Justice, a branch of the United Nations, which Israel regards as biased against it. The court concluded in a 2004 opinion that Jewish settlements in what it calls occupied Palestinian territory are illegal.”

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

The U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed the Fourth Geneva Convention applies, that this is occupied territory, and Israeli settlements there are illegal.

As for Israel’s “settlement” intentions, they were made clear by one of the nation’s respected leaders:

“We must define our position and lay down basic principles for a settlement. Our demands should be moderate and balanced, and appear to be reasonable. But in fact they must involve such conditions as to ensure that the enemy rejects them. Then we should manoeuvre and allow him to define his own position, and reject a settlement on the basis of a compromise solution. We should then publish his demands as embodying unreasonable extremism.” 

— Chief of Intelligence General Yehoshafat Harkabi, Ma’ariv, 2 November 1973