News / Palestine

Israel ramps up crackdown on Palestinians following jailbreak

Wednesday, 22 September 2021 6:45 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 22 September 2021 6:51 PM ]

Picture taken on September 9, 2021 shows Israeli troops guarding a fence leading to the occupied West Bank as part of search efforts to capture six Palestinians, who had escaped an Israeli prison on September 6, (Photo by Reuters)

The Israeli regime has escalated its daily crackdown on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank with more arbitrary arrests, ambushes, nighttime assaults, and security raids following the daring escape of six inmates from a maximum-security Israeli jail.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Wafa news agency said the regime had rounded up six Palestinians from across the West Bank during nighttime home invasions and unannounced swoops.

One was arrested after the forces attacked his house and went on a rampage there, in the Jalazone refugee camp north of the city of Ramallah.

Four more were nabbed from the Shuafat refugee camp in East al-Quds by Israeli forces “hiding in a minibus.”

And another was apprehended in the city of Jericho, which is located to the east of Ramallah.

Tel Aviv never offers any concrete reasons for the operations or produces any evidence that could justify them. Nor does the regime ever seek any legal permission before going on the arrest sprees.

Wafa said the crackdowns regularly take place in areas that lie under supposed full jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, something that proved the “arbitrary” nature of the campaigns.

“Under Israeli military law, army commanders have full executive, legislative, and judicial authority over three million Palestinians living in the West Bank. Palestinians have no say in how this authority is exercised,” the agency wrote.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli forces stormed several Palestinian towns in the Jenin area in the north of the West Bank and set up checkpoints there.

No arrests were carried out during the raid, which observers identified as another instance of the regime’s employing its scare tactics.

Jenin has taken the brunt of the escalation in the Israeli aggression since it is where six Palestinians, who escaped from the Israeli prison in the north of the occupied territories on September 6, come from.