THE Israeli military has arrested dozens of Palestinians as part of an expansion of its military operations across the occupied West Bank.
At least 50 people were arrested in overnight raids, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, both cited by a report by the Palestinian news agency Wafa on Wednesday.
According to Wafa’s report, the military rounded up people for interrogation in the governorates of Hebron, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Tubas.
As part of the campaign, Israeli troops stormed the Majed Abu Sharar School in the city of Dura near Hebron and arrested two students, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said on Wednesday.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October 2023 to more than 14,500, including those who were released later, according to Palestinian groups.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip, whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
The mass detentions came amid Israel’s intensified military offensive in the West Bank that began after the Gaza ceasefire was agreed upon a month ago.
The offensive has seen at least 62 Palestinians killed and about 40,000 people evacuated from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps in the West Bank in a month.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, on Wednesday said the occupied West Bank was now a ”battlefield” facing an “alarming spillover” of the Gaza war.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for the residents of the Nur Shams camp, located east of the town of Tulkarem, before the planned demolition of 11 residential buildings.
Israeli forces gave the residents just three hours to evacuate their homes, according to Wafa. Families were seen leaving their homes carrying the few belongings they were able to take.
