ISRAELI WAR ON THREE FRONTS
Israel is now waging war on three fronts: Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. The latest front is the West Bank, an area containing 3 million Palestinians under Israeli military rule. There, Israeli soldiers do whatever they want: storming houses (searching for militants and weapons or wanting to use the houses for lookout points), ripping up roads (to counter the threat of improvised explosives), imposing curfews, stopping and searching whomever they want. Jenin (pop. 50,000), an impoverished hotbed of disaffected youths and militant recruitment, is the current focus of Israeli military activity. Meanwhile settlement expansion by Israelis into Palestinian lands continues. Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested. At least 652 have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 7.
The death toll in Gaza is currently 40,534 since October 7; 93,778 have been wounded. Yet still the US supports Israel and its armed forces, even when it concludes that some Israeli actions have been excessive.Â
Sources: The New York Times, 9/1/24 and The Guardian, 9/1/24