The new head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, promised “unwavering support” for Israel.
AFP
The new head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, promised “unwavering support” to Israel against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza and the intervention of the Israeli army in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
While this city was targeted by heavy fire, the Secretary of State spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to “emphasize that maintaining the United States’ unwavering support for Israel is a top priority for the president Donald Trump,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
Mr. Rubio also “congratulated the Prime Minister on Israel’s successes against Hamas and Hezbollah and pledged to work tirelessly to help free all hostages still held in Gaza,” she said. .
Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas began implementing a ceasefire last Sunday in the war that has opposed them for 15 months in the Gaza Strip and which provides for an exchange of hostages and prisoners.
This agreement in several stages was outlined in May by Joe Biden, the Democratic predecessor of Donald Trump, then finally concluded thanks to the joint efforts of the diplomatic teams of both.
The new American president, however, revealed on Monday, a few hours after his inauguration, that he was “not sure” that the truce in Gaza would hold.
Israeli bulldozers
In one of his first decisions, President Trump also ended the sanctions imposed by Joe Biden on extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, because of their attacks against the Palestinians.
In 2020, during his first term, the Republican proposed a “deal of the century” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which provided for the annexation by Israel of parts of the West Bank, but never came to fruition. His return has therefore revived the debate in Israel on this highly sensitive issue.
In this context, the day after his inauguration and two days after the truce in Gaza came into force, the Israeli army “launched an anti-terrorist operation” in Jenin, a city in the northern West Bank.
“The situation is very difficult. The occupying army bulldozed all the roads leading to the Jenin camp and the hospital,” city governor Kamal Abu Rub told AFP.
“There are shots and explosions. A plane is flying over the area,” he added, referring to numerous arrests.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicated that it had “hit more than ten terrorists” during the operation.
-Arrests
The latest results of the fighting during Operation “Iron Wall”, which dates back to Tuesday evening, showed ten dead and 35 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Jenin, particularly its refugee camp, is regularly the target of Israeli military operations against armed groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other movements more or less linked to them.
In recent months, operations have followed one another, leaving neighborhoods cut off from each other, in particular because the asphalt of certain roads has been torn up by Israeli bulldozers. The army says it uses these devices to protect itself from explosive devices.
An AFP journalist noted that a video device had been installed on an artery in Jenin, in front of which dozens of residents passed. Some of them were arrested by Israeli forces.
The Qatari channel Al Jazeera indicated that its journalist Mohammed Al-Atrash was arrested at his home by Palestinian forces “to prevent him from covering the Israeli operation”.
Defense Minister Israel Katz justified the operation in the Jenin refugee camp as “a change in the security approach” of the army in the West Bank: “We will decisively strike the tentacles of the octopus until they are severed.
Benjamin Netanyahu placed the operation as part of a broader strategy targeting Iran, “wherever it sends its weapons – to Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen” and the West Bank.
France expressed on Wednesday “its serious concerns regarding the increase in security tensions” in the West Bank and called on “the Israeli authorities to show restraint”, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Violence in the West Bank has exploded since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on southern Israel, and which is the subject of a truce. fragile since Sunday.
Since then, at least 848 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army or by settlers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
At the same time, at least 29 Israelis, including soldiers, died there in Palestinian attacks or in military operations, according to Israel.
(afp)
