Following a terror attack on Friday, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu announced a series of harsh new crackdowns against West Bank Palestinians, declaring the moves part of “a fight to the death against Palestinian terror.” Israeli military forces were soon raiding refugee camps and Palestinian towns across the occupied territory.
By the end of the day, over 100 Palestinians, many of them teenagers, were wounded in the series of “arrest operations,” which included Israeli soldiers raiding a hospital to arrest a patient, smashing the surveillance cameras inside before leaving at least 18 Palestinians wounded in a single incident.
It is unclear how many Palestinians ended up detained in the assorted raids, though Netanyahu insisted that there will be more detention without trials and more “fast-track demolitions” of the homes of detained suspects.
All Palestinians are being banned from the Old City of Jerusalem under the new restrictions, and access to the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the most important sites in Islam, will be tightly restricted to only men over the age of 50, who will only be allowed in through a single gate.
The Palestinian government issued a statement condemning the crackdown and urging the international community to intervene to get Israel to stop. Major protests were reported several places in the West Bank, and each time saw the military arrive to fire rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators.
"Urging the international community to intervene to get Israel to stop" – has been tried for years with no success. Problem is that if the "international community" includes the USA, the "international community" prefers that Israel continue with it's criminal behavior. Get the USA out of the picture and maybe civilized action can prevail.