For over 27 hours, Israeli forces have carried out mass arrests, kidnapping Palestinians from the streets of Tulkarm City, a city in the Northern occupied West Bank:
Mass arrests are collective punishment
Roads are blockaded and gates to the city closed:
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have also raided Palestinian homes and businesses, including pharmacies, shops and buses, destroying their contents, while arresting and beating their owners. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the IOF have also prevented medical crews reaching some of the wounded:
According to Israeli publication Haaretz, an explosive device was detonated earlier yesterday, ‘lightly wounding’ two of the occupation’s soldiers. Residents described the military assault and arrests as ‘collective punishment and a show of force’. Although the number of arrests is unclear, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society reports that it is, so far, in the hundreds:
These forcible disappearances are taking place as the ongoing siege on Tulkarm and its two refugee camps, Tulkarm and Nur Shams has entered its 228th consecutive day amid daily raids and strict military measures targeting residents and their property, in which Palestinian homes have even been occupied by the IOF, and turned into military barracks:
Another Palestinian journalist arrested
Witnesses have said the IOF have ‘arrested everyone they saw’, including pharmacists, municipality staff, health workers, teachers, and men who were in their cars, on buses, and in mosques. One of those taken away yesterday was Palestinian journalist Alaa Al-Jarad. He was arrested after Israeli occupying forces broke into his home last night, assaulting both Alaa and his wife during the raid on their home:
While Israeli occupation forces are carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip, they have also stepped up collective punishment and forced displacement in the occupied West Bank. Not only is the highest rate of home demolitions in the West Bank, since 1967, currently underway, but Netanyahu has also officially approved the E1 plan. Construction in the E1 area would effectively cut off the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem, and would undermine any chances of a Palestinian state. Plans to build 3400 illegal settlement units in the E1 area are currently taking place.
40,000 forcibly displaced from their homes already
Since January, 2025, there has been a major military offensive against three Palestinian refugee camps in Tulkarm and Jenin, in the Northern West Bank, which has forcibly displaced 40,000 Palestinians from their homes.
When attacks happen, such as the one earlier this week, in which Palestinian gunmen killed six Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem, the occupation steps up its collective punishment on Palestinians even more. It is not just the city of Tulkarm that is bearing the brunt of the occupation’s violence but also other towns and villages, which are now ‘under siege’, with a large presence of IOF.
Far-right occupation leaders, such as Police Minister Ben Gvir have demanded ‘vengeance’ for the attack and have vowed to increase West Bank raids.
The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society released a statement last night, during the mass arrests in Tulkarm which included the following:
The scenes being witnessed in Tulkarm are an extension of the scenes of mass humiliation we have witnessed in Gaza during this genocide. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented rise in the number of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held behind bars by the occupation…The abuse of Palestinians and the unprecedented scale of arbitrary arrests must be halted through accountability and real international pressure.
There have been 19,000 arrests in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, and this is a form of collective punishment for Palestinians. More than 11,000 Palestinians are currently detained in Israeli prisons, many of them without charge or trial.
Featured image and additional images/video supplied
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.