Eurasia Press & News
The Israeli political and security objectives of the military operation in the northern West Bank and the Jordan Valley are numerous and complex and are linked in their timing to the course of confrontation on other fronts, especially the fronts of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and the seriousness of the development of the situation in the West Bank is not only related to the course of the Palestinian arena, but affects the Jordanian interior.
On the morning of the twenty-eighth of August 2024, the Israeli army began a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank and the Jordan Valley, dubbed “summer camps”, and described it as the largest since Operation Defensive Wall in 2002, and was mainly concentrated in the areas of Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas, with the participation of hundreds of soldiers from the army, intelligence services and special forces, and with the support of the Air Force, and the operation is expected to last for several days. This military operation comes after a series of statements by the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Ministers Finance and national security in Israel, which considers the West Bank a major front of the seven fronts of confrontation, specifically in its areas adjacent to the Green Line and its camps, in addition to the fact that Israeli military operations in the West Bank continued before the events of the seventh of October 2023, and increased in frequency after those events, and it is also linked to the development of the capabilities of Palestinian armed groups in the northern West Bank, whether through their clashes with Israeli forces, their means of responding to Israeli incursions and operations, their methods of carrying out shooting operations against settlers, or their attempts to fire rockets towards Israeli territory.
Objectives and timing of the operation
The Israeli objectives of the military operation are numerous and complex (political, security and military), and are linked in their timing to the course of confrontation on other fronts, especially the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, where the operation comes in light of the decline in the intensity of Israeli ground military operations in the Gaza Strip on the one hand, and days after the last round of confrontation between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah on August 25, during which the Israeli army launched a preemptive strike that thwarted Hezbollah’s planned attack, and the complexities surrounding the calculations of Iran and other parties to the “axis”. resistance” as a result of Israel’s information superiority and the US military presence, and in a way that prompted the axis to rearrange its priorities.
In terms of objectives, the most important of them can be stopped at in the following:
First: The Israeli quest to highlight and exaggerate the Iranian role in supporting Palestinian armed field groups, a goal that serves Israel’s policies related to confronting the “Iranian threat” and the arenas of the “axis of resistance” on its security and the security of the region, and in this context came Israel’s assassination of Brigadier General Khalil al-Maqdah in Lebanon on August 21, 2024, a leader in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades affiliated with the Fatah movement, and Israel accuses him of responsibility for smuggling Iranian weapons to armed groups in the West Bank, and then announcing the assassination of the leader of the “Jihad” operations unit Firas Qassem on August 28, in a raid on the Damascus-Beirut road, where Israel accuses him of recruiting Palestinians to carry out armed operations against Israel from Lebanese territory, in addition to Israel’s repeated announcements that it has thwarted arms smuggling operations from Lebanon to the West Bank.
Second: The attempt to undermine the escalating activity of armed field groups operating in the northern West Bank, especially in light of the emergence of cooperation and joint coordination relations between these groups, and the participation of Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades with these groups, along with the Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as this level of cooperation, coordination and joint armament is an unprecedented phenomenon for Israel, especially after the joint announcement by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of claiming responsibility for the bombing in Tel Aviv on August 18, which led to the death of its perpetrator and the injury of an Israeli.
Third: Trying to show the weakness of the Palestinian Authority or its inability to control security over the northern areas of the West Bank, and this serves the narratives of the Israeli extreme right, which adopts a narrative of opposition to the Authority and its role, especially by the ministers of “religious Zionism” in the Israeli government, who employ their tools to undermine the ability of the Authority to exercise its duties, as Israel withholds about $ 1.5 billion, of clearance funds until mid-June 2024, legitimizes more settlement outposts, and plans to build thousands of new settlement units, and part of these The pressure comes in response to the demands of settlers and the far-right public for partisan and electoral reasons.
Fourth: Pressure Hamas and other armed factions operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, especially Islamic Jihad, in order to prevent the factions from escalating the confrontation in the West Bank to relieve military pressure on them in the Gaza Strip, or to think beyond that of carrying out kidnappings or targeting operations that may raise their negotiating cards in the ongoing ceasefire talks in Doha and Cairo or any upcoming negotiations.
Next step predictions
The Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank coincided with the statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, in which he said that “what is happening in the West Bank is a war in every sense of the word, and we must win it, and we must deal with the West Bank as we deal with Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of the population,” and the danger of Katz’s statements is that they are issued at the official political level, and with their indicators about the nature and dimensions of the operation, in terms of the participation of 4 battalions of border guards and units of undercover soldiers along with special units and the Shin Bet, mobilizing thousands of soldiers from special forces units according to Israel’s Channel 14, and pushing the air force from helicopters, fighter jets and drones to participate in them, which means that the operation is likely to expand in scope and extend in duration, and may have humanitarian and political repercussions, including renewing the fears of West Bank residents of plans to internally displace them in preparation for the establishment of “buffer zones” and empty of residents in areas near the Green Line and Jewish settlements inside the West Bank, as a step to complete of the separation wall, which Israel began building in 2002. In particular, the Israeli army repeats its practices in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, such as notifying the residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp to evacuate those who want to leave voluntarily, cutting off water services in some areas, and causing extensive destruction to the infrastructure of streets, water and electricity lines. The risks of a military operation increase when it is read more broadly as part of the far-right approach to annexing the West Bank and resolving the conflict.
However, these repercussions are not only related to the policies of the Israeli government and its political, security and military goals, as the possibility of the course of events developing in a reverse way, whether in terms of the development of the performance of Palestinian armed field groups and their ability to adapt methods of confrontation, or expansion to other areas in the West Bank, in addition to the risks of the expansion of the military operation reflecting on the positions of the Palestinian security services, which maintained their tasks limited to maintaining security, both during the war in the Gaza Strip, and in previous rounds of escalation in the West Bank. However, this is threatened if the situation worsens or worsens today, as a member of the Palestinian police has previously carried out a lone attack with a shooting on February 29, 2024 against Israeli targets, and this behavior is likely to expand or take a collective grant, not to mention the possibility of the development of Palestinian popular reactions in a way that may trigger a third intifada or in the form of clashes between Palestinians and settlers. Israeli forces know that they will engage in one of the world’s most dangerous complex environments, which means they expect significant losses.
Implications for Jordan
At the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Jordan warned of its repercussions on all regional affairs in general, and the West Bank in particular, and clarified its opposition to Israel’s exploitation of the attacks of Palestinian factions on the areas and bases of the Gaza envelope, in imposing new facts on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and bringing the Palestinian cause and the region at a juncture that meets the aspirations of the Israeli extreme right, and ignores the relevant UN resolutions, especially those related to attempts to change the status quo in Jerusalem and holy sites. Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque five times since taking office in late 2022, most recently on July 18, 2024, and a student stated on August 26 that he intends to build a synagogue in Al-Aqsa Mosque, or “Temple Mount,” according to him. In addition to the settlers’ behavior and violence against Palestinians, especially after the distribution of weapons to them by Ben Gvir, who stated on August 4 that he had granted settlers more than 150,000 weapons licenses, in addition to accelerating the legalization of settlements, confiscating Palestinian land, building new settlement units, and imposing Israeli law on areas classified (B) in the West Bank that are administratively under the Palestinian Authority.
In fact, since October, Jordan has seen the war in the Gaza Strip and Israeli measures in the West Bank as part of a broader plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause, which has direct repercussions on Jordan’s national security and its security and social stability. Therefore, the official discourse towards Israel has escalated at various levels, and Jordan read early on Israel’s intentions to escalate in the West Bank, likely sending a field hospital to the West Bank city of Nablus in November 2023.
Although the ongoing Israeli military operation in the West Bank is not the first of its kind, and may not be the last, it comes at a time when the explosive factors in the West Bank are increasing, with the war in the Gaza Strip and its unprecedented humanitarian repercussions, with the presence of an Israeli government planning to liquidate the Palestinian cause, and in light of the state of tension among Palestinian citizens due to the increasing violence of the Israeli army and settlers.
His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein, in his meeting with members of the US Congress in Amman on August 28, warned of “the seriousness of the developments in the West Bank,” which are not only related to the course of the Palestinian arena, but also affect the Jordanian interior, especially in light of Israeli statements that resemble what is happening in the West Bank in the Gaza Strip, and Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz’s call for forced evictions in the West Bank, whether these statements are pressure factors or plans. It adds new tensions for Jordan on its western border, as well as its northern and eastern borders with Syria and Iraq.
