Funeral Procession in Nablus for assassinated resistance fighters.
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) assassinated three resistance fighters in the Occupied West Bank on February 8. The targeted military operation took place in the heart of Nablus in broad daylight.
Israeli soldiers used two private vehicles with Palestinian plates to enter the al-Makhfiya neighbourhood of the northern West Bank city to reach their target. They then got out and surrounded the vehicle carrying the Palestinian men, and opened fire on it from point-blank range. A fourth occupant of the vehicle who survived the attack was arrested.
Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets to condemn this crime. A general strike was held across the West Bank, with protesters engaging in fierce clashes with the Israeli occupation forces in many places. The people affirmed their right to resist the ongoing crimes of the Zionist occupiers, rejected cooperation with the IDF on matters of security in the Occupied Territories and called for international condemnation of the assassinations in Nablus.
On February 10, Israeli soldiers carried out further crimes to suppress the movement of the Palestinian people, invading several Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, including the occupied capital Jerusalem. Raids were carried out on many homes in which at least 12 Palestinians, including former political prisoners and three children, were abducted.
Protest in Jenin against Israeli assassinations, February 9, 2022.
General Strike in the West Bank, February 9, 2022. Photo by Shadi Jarar’ah
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) noted in its weekly update for February 3-9, that “So far in 2022, IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] attacks killed five Palestinians and wounded 47 others, including eight children and four journalists, all in the West Bank.”
Since the beginning of 2022, the Israeli military has also “made 21 families homeless, a total of 128 persons, including 23 women and 50 children. This was the outcome of IOF demolition of 27 houses and three residential tents. IOF also demolished 11 other civilian objects, and delivered 12 notices of demolition, cease-construction, and evacuation.”
Prior to its latest crimes on February 10, the Israeli military in 2022 had “conducted 697 incursions into the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, during which 444 Palestinians were arrested, including 35 children and six women.”
As concerns crimes by Zionist settlers in 2022, the PCHR informs that these forces have carried out 21 attacks on Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank so far this year.
Toronto rally in solidarity with Palestinian people, January 29, 2022
On February 8, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a targeted assassination of three Palestinian resistance fighters in Nablus in the West Bank, part of the Occupied Territories of Palestine. It was one more heinous crime of the occupation forces against the Palestinian people while their backers, with their stranglehold on the United Nations Security Council, let it happen.
The Shin Bet security service and the Border Police issued a joint statement which, once again, cited Israel’s alleged right to self-defence:
A terrorist cell from the Nablus area was eliminated. The cell is responsible for a series of shooting attacks in the area against the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli civilians in recent weeks.
As usual, there is no evidence of terrorism. On the contrary, the right of the Palestinian people to resist their occupation, which is acceptable under international law, is confounded with terrorism, which is not. Putting the Palestinians on trial rather than Israeli actions is the trick perpetrated by the imperialist media, as if this can justify cold-blooded executions.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz wrote on Twitter: “I recently ordered that preventive actions against shooting attacks and troop presence in central arteries and areas of the [West Bank] be stepped up […] We’ll continue with proactive operations, prevent [attacks] and capture anyone who tries to hurt people.”
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) condemns the assassinations, ongoing arrests and incarceration of Palestinian men, women and children, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and the theft of their ancestral homes and lands.
CPC(M-L) also condemns Canada’s support for Israel’s crimes. Global Affairs Canada has been notably silent on the February 8 assassinations and all the other crimes Israel has committed against the Palestinian people in 2022.
Canada’s silence on Israel’s latest crimes follows the federal government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism in 2019. This definition is actively used to falsely claim that anyone criticizing Israel’s crimes against Palestine is anti-Semitic. The Trudeau government has also said that it plans to “strengthen the Canada Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to more effectively combat online anti-Semitism and hate.”
The crimes against Palestine are all based on a huge historical fraud. The state of Israel has never once applied the terms of its foundation by United Nations Resolution 181, passed on November 29, 1947. According to this resolution, the British Mandate for Palestine was partitioned into Arab and Jewish states, and international status for the City of Jerusalem as the joint capital of both states.
As stated by UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the opening session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on February 8, “There is no plan B.” Yet Israel has continued, since its founding, to displace and dispossess the Palestinian people, in its ongoing program of genocide.
Israel’s grave violations of international law are being exacerbated in the present, with Zionist settlers taking over the government, including the office of the president. They are committing ever more heinous crimes against the Palestinians, such as brutal seizures of ancestral homes during the night or at the crack of dawn, with elders, men, women and children thrown into the streets, while anyone who resists is arrested or killed in cold blood.
The media should be asked to explain themselves for never discussing the duties of Israel as an occupying force. They should explain why they cower before threats that they will be accused of hate crimes if they criticize Israel and why instead they try to provide justifications for what cannot be justified.
UN Secretary-General Guterres said in his remarks on February 8: “Political, economic and security conditions across the Occupied Palestinian Territory are deteriorating as Palestinians experience high levels of dispossession, violence and insecurity.” He called on the international community to urgently intensify efforts to resolve the conflict and end the occupation in line with UN resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements. He noted with concern the territory-wide violence, including actions carried out by settlers and during military operations, that have led to numerous deaths.
“All settlement activity is illegal. It must stop,” he stated.
He also called for an improved economic and humanitarian situation in Palestine. He highlighted the need to increase support for the UN Humanitarian Flash Appeal, ongoing reconstruction efforts in Gaza, and COVID-19 response.
Guterres also expressed concern over what he called the “dire” economic situation facing the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as the financial crisis facing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the agency, reported in 2021 that funding for UNWRA has not increased in nearly 10 years.
The Israeli occupation is directly responsible for wrecking Palestine’s economy, including its high unemployment, which in turn is undermining the revenue and stability of the PA and its capacity to provide the services the people require.
Israel also withholds tax revenue that it collects on behalf of the PA. It does so under a 2018 law, in which it calculates an amount it claims equates to the financial support the PA provides to Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, their families, and the families of those killed or injured during attacks by Israel. In 2021, Israel deprived the PA of $180 million based on its calculations for 2020.
While Israel has recently permitted increased movement of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip, UN Secretary-General Guterres asked for a full lifting of the closures in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1860. The Israeli occupiers have maintained their illegal and inhuman siege of Gaza for 15 years.
“Time is running short,” the UN Secretary-General said.
(TML Daily, posted February 12, 2022. With files from UN News Centre, PCHR and news agencies.)