Eurasia Press & News
Operation Iron Wall comes as an advanced episode of the war in the Gaza Strip, and part of the Israeli Prime Minister’s previous promises to redraw the features of the Middle East. This is evident through a series of Israeli measures aimed at re-engineering the Palestinian and Syrian geography, spatially and humanly, and changing urban planning in the West Bank in favor of settlement projects, in a step considered a prelude to annexation and imposing sovereignty.
The Israeli military operation in the West Bank, which the Israeli army has dubbed “Iron Wall”, is escalating. It began in the city of Jenin and its camp on January 21, 2025, as the army pushed a tank company from the 188th Armored Brigade into the northern West Bank; for the first time since 2002. Israeli forces are stationed in various areas of the West Bank, including the city of Jenin and its camp, after previously carrying out limited incursions and withdrawing from urban areas. The operation is deepening at a time when the ceasefire agreement is facing challenges in moving to the second phase, amid expectations of a resumption of the war, and in light of Israeli deployment in areas of southern Syria, and Israel’s attempts to establish any positioning or presence of the transitional administration forces in the south.
Similarities in Israeli procedures between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
Military operations are intensifying in the West Bank, specifically in the city of Jenin and its camp. Although this is not the first of its kind in the northern West Bank, it is taking on unprecedented dimensions. The features of Defense Minister Yisrael Katz’s announcement after the launch of the operation that “the army is applying the lessons learned from the operations in the Gaza Strip” have begun to appear and become clear, as the similarity between tactics and strategies is somewhat great. On the one hand, official estimates indicate that the level of destruction and displacement in the city of Jenin and its camp is unprecedented, as about 90% of the residents of the Jenin camp have been displaced. Katz indicated that the Israeli army evacuated forty thousand Palestinians from the camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams, while Human Rights Watch warned of Israel replicating the violations of the Gaza Strip in the West Bank, and indicated that the Israeli army demolished a large number of homes and vital infrastructure such as sewage networks and water pipes in Jenin.
On the other hand, the scene in the West Bank and Gaza Strip can be analyzed in terms of Israel’s attempts to engineer urban planning in the two areas, through repeated targeting of camps, including Jenin camp, Beit Hanoun camp, and Jabalia camp, in light of the Israeli belief that the camps constitute a human reservoir for armed factions and field armed groups. The Israeli army also announced plans to pave roads and create military paths in Jenin and Tulkarm, similar to the “Netzarim axis” that the army established in the central Gaza Strip, in order to improve the operational capacity of the forces in the field, ensure the arrival of military vehicles inside the camps in the northern West Bank, and allow quick access to any point there.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing is the similarity of the two cases in that the Palestinian territories have no authority and are managed according to Israeli directions. Israel has previously directly and indirectly supervised the distribution of aid in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank, the Israeli police have imposed traffic violations on Palestinian citizens inside the city of Jenin, which is classified as Area A according to the Oslo Accords.
The intersection of Israeli goals between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
The Israeli military operation continues amidst a series of changes taking place in the Palestinian territories, specifically the agreement between the Israeli government and the US administration regarding plans to displace the people of the Gaza Strip, considering it uninhabitable, and on the one hand, the support of US President Donald Trump and members of his administration for the Israeli annexation of areas classified as (C) in the West Bank to its sovereignty.
In this context, the goals intersect in Israel’s attempts to create a new demographic, field and geographic reality in the Palestinian territories, as the Gaza Strip remains without an administration and a governing system, an issue that is fundamentally linked to reconstruction, while the Palestinian Authority faces fateful challenges in imposing its authority on the West Bank. The Washington Post indicated in mid-February 2025 that the US administration had frozen funding for the Palestinian security services, as part of a broad freeze on US aid abroad. This imposes additional pressure on the Palestinian Authority to the Israeli measures that aim to undermine its ability to operate in its areas.
The goals also intersect in Israel’s attempts to redraw the social landscape of the Strip. The Israeli Channel 14 reported that the Israeli political leadership is preparing for the day following the military operation in the West Bank, and that there is a civil plan that will be implemented after that operation, where the map of the northern West Bank will be redrawn, urban planning will be changed, emphasis will be placed on refugee camps, and curricula will be developed that are free of “anti-Semitism.” This is confirmed by a series of Israeli legislation and decisions related to the West Bank in the past two years, the most recent of which was the Israeli Knesset’s approval on January 29, 2025, of a bill allowing Jewish settlers to purchase land in the West Bank directly without referring to the army, and the Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s approval on February 9, 2025 of a law adopting the name “Judea and Samaria” instead of the West Bank, in addition to the Knesset’s discussion of a legal amendment that requires a popular referendum or the approval of eighty members of the Knesset before any withdrawal from the West Bank.
Israeli measures and attempts to shuffle the cards
The Israeli measures in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip complicate joint Arab efforts to reject displacement in the Gaza Strip, most notably the Jordanian and Egyptian positions, and the Arab consensus at the emergency Arab Summit held in Cairo on March 2, 2025, on the Egyptian initiative to rebuild the Gaza Strip. This coincided with Israel’s renewed threat to resume the war in the Strip. The Israeli government gave Hamas a 10-day deadline to release the Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip before the war resumes again. In early March 2025, it took a decision to stop the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip until further notice in coordination with the United States, which means the continuation of the state of war, and thus the continuation of the displacement plans for the citizens of the Gaza Strip.
This puts Arab attempts in an awkward position, and even complicates the movements of Arab countries on two fronts in the Palestinian territories, especially with the emergence of serious risks of the beginning of Israeli measures to change the geographical and demographic reality in the West Bank, in conjunction with its attempts to influence the ongoing political process in Syria, and impose a “safe depth” extending along southern Syria all the way to the capital Damascus, by positioning itself as a protector of the Druze sect, and its attempts to prevent any presence of the transitional administration forces in the south. On March 2, 2025, the Israeli Channel (Kan) reported that the Israeli government directed the Israeli army to prepare to defend the Druze city of Jaramana in the Damascus countryside, and all of this means that the policies of the Israeli government are not limited to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and that these policies enjoy American support, and constitute a comprehensive regional danger, and a threat to various Arab countries.
Finally , Operation Iron Wall comes as an advanced episode of the war in the Gaza Strip, and part of the previous promises of the Israeli Prime Minister to redraw the features of the Middle East. This is evident through a series of Israeli measures aimed at re-engineering the Palestinian and Syrian geography, spatially and humanly, and changing urban planning in the West Bank in favor of settlement projects, in a step considered a prelude to annexation and imposing sovereignty. The danger of the ongoing operation lies specifically in targeting refugee camps and ending their presence in the West Bank through continuous military operations, at a time when it is targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and banning its activities, which creates a “repellent environment” that works to push the largest possible number of Palestinian refugees to voluntary migration if Israeli projects for forced displacement are impossible due to Palestinian and Arab positions that strongly reject those projects.
