Palestinian militants ‘ready to die’ as prospect of all-out war increases after West Bank clashes
The alleyways that run inside the Balata refugee camp are narrow, claustrophobic and full of uncollected rubbish.
Posters celebrating dead militants are stuck to the walls. Children are everywhere – more than half the population of the camp is under 25.
We were escorted to meet fighters from Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, one of the largest and oldest militant groups in the West Bank.
They are a proscribed terror group by Israel, the EU and US, but not the UK.
Out front, I turned a corner and they were there – dressed all in black, M16 assault rifles in hand and balaclavas covering their faces.
They are young men, heavily armed and say they are ready to die defending their land.
We made our introductions and then moved down another alleyway – an Israeli military lookout post was on the hill above us; snipers watch every move in the camp below.
“We’re seeing an escalation by the [Israeli] occupation forces across camps in the West Bank, especially in Jenin and Balata,” one of the militants tells me.
“Most of the operations are carried out by the Israeli special forces. Yesterday, two of our men were killed in clashes when they entered inside the camp.”
The fighters are relaxed. This is their stronghold.
CCTV cameras seem to be everywhere, they joke it’s like Paris or London; the militia has its own reconnaissance unit that watches for undercover Israeli special forces entering the camp.
Violent clashes have been more frequent in recent months – 2022 was the deadliest year since 2005 and already 2023, only a few weeks old, is more deadly still.
After nine Palestinians, mostly militants, were killed in an Israeli counter-terror raid on Thursday, the prospect of another all-out war is closer.
One of those killed was a 61-year old woman, Magda Obaid, caught in the crossfire.
The IDF says it’s investigating her death, but the list of unexplained civilian fatalities is growing.
“I think because of the policies of the right-wing Israeli government there will be an escalation in the West Bank,” the militant from Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades predicts.
Ibrahim Ramadan, governor of Nablus, says people have ‘no hope’
A poster of dead militants hangs above a fruit and veg stall
Read more:
Israel shoots down rockets fired from Gaza after deadly raid
Tensions rise as Israel hardens policies towards Palestinians
Talk of a new uprising, a third intifada, which has been so often threatened in recent years, is emerging again.
“I think that there is an intifada coming,” Ibrahim Ramadan, governor of Nablus tells me.
“Why? There is not any hope among my people. The Palestinian people need hope, small hope for their freedom.”
The deputy mayor of Nablus, Dr Husam Shakhshiris, is more sanguine but equally blunt in his assessment of the current situation.
“It [Nablus] is occupied by the state of Israel. The Israeli army is entering the city everyday,” he says.
“We have two military camps on top [of the surrounding hills], we have seven settlements surrounding Nablus city connected by bus routes, and it’s easy for the Israelis to close the city and prevent the movement in and out of the city.”
As we walk around the city together, Dr Husam is clearly popular. Residents stop to greet him.
Unlike the militants we met, he has the wisdom of age and is thoughtful and considered in his words, but no less damning of Israel.
“How bad is it?” I ask him.
Nablus’s deputy mayor says the current situation is the worst he’s ever seen
“This is bad. I see all the time in the past that there was hope to have a peace solution, to have a two-state solution implemented, especially after Oslo,” says Dr Husam.
“Now we don’t see this hope, we don’t see a peaceful solution and we are stuck in these contours created by the policies of the state of Israel. They don’t see or recognise our national right of self-determination.
“It is the worst situation in my life.”
Violence in Israel and the West Bank goes in cycles.
Right now, any prospect of peace talks, or even a two-state solution, feels a long way off.
Neither side is in the mood to talk or to compromise, and so for many Palestinians fighting seems like the only route to more freedoms.
Humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza “at scale” by Israel to avoid a “generation of children that won’t have a chance in life,” the director of the UN’s World Food Programme has told Sky News.
In early March – before Israel resumed its military operations in the Gaza Strip – all aid was blocked from entering the region.
Despite limited aid now being distributed to Gaza through a US and Israeli-backed organisation, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire near one of the sites.
Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), has urged Israel to allow international aid to “get in and get in at scale”.
“We can’t wait for this,” she told The World with Yalda Hakim. “We need safe, unfettered, clear access all the way in and we’re not getting that right now.”
Ms McCain said people in Gaza were “starving, they’re hungry, they’re doing what they can do to feed their families”.
She added: “It’s very, very important that people realise that the only way to stave off malnutrition, catastrophic food insecurity and, of course, famine would be by complete and total access for organisations like mine.”
Ms McCain said the WFP team was “talking every day” to the Israeli government to try to resume aid deliveries.
Palestinians struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis on Monday. Pic: AP
“We’re not going to give up, we do believe that it’s not only necessary but it’s urgent that we get in and get in at scale,” she said.
“We’re looking at a generation of children that won’t have a chance in life because they haven’t had the proper nutrients.
“Right now, we’re looking at over 500,000 people within Gaza that are catastrophically food insecure.”
Ms McCain added: “I try and put myself in their situation: I’m a mother and grandmother, and I cannot imagine having my children ask me for food and me not being able to give it them.
“I don’t know what that does to a human spirit but I don’t want to see any more of that as a humanitarian aid worker.”
Ms McCain, the widow of the late US presidential candidate John McCain, said she believes in “principled, humanitarian distribution” of aid.
Asked if she thought Hamas was taking aid, she replied: “I have not seen anything like that. I have no way of knowing because I’ve not been there in person.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
How Israel’s aid plan unravelled
Aid distribution centres in Gaza were closed on Wednesday after Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli gunfire near one of its sites.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – which is endorsed by Israel – said the centres would be shut “for renovations, organisation, and efficiency improvements”. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) warned nearby roads would be considered “combat zones”.
It came after 27 Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid to be distributed in the Rafah area of southern Gaza on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The IDF said it fired “near a few individual suspects” who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots, about half a kilometre from the aid distribution site of the GHF. It denied shooting at civilians at the aid centre.
Read more:
How Gaza’s aid rollout system collapsed into chaos
Israel ‘without doubt’ committed Gaza war crimes, says ex-Biden official
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
That incident came two days after reports that 31 people were killed as they walked to a distribution centre run by the GHF in the Rafah area.
However the IDF said its forces “did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false”.
It’s only been ten days since Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin crazy following a series of Russian attacks on Ukraine.
But now the attacks have been flowing in the opposite direction, it feels like the Russian president has seen an opportunity to win back Washington’s affections.
It involves playing the victim.
Ukraine war latest: Putin wants revenge for airbase attacks, says Trump
The Kremlin, for example, said the leaders’ call was focussed on Ukrainian attacks “on Russian civilians”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Ukraine drone attack: new video analysed
Putin accused Ukraine of relying on ‘terror’. Pic: Reuters
And before it, Putin accused Ukraine’s leadership of being a “terrorist organisation”, in his first comments since the spate of assaults began.
He was referring to Saturday’s bombing of a highway bridge in the Bryansk region, which left seven dead and dozens injured after part of a passenger train was crushed.
No one has claimed responsibility but Russia blames Ukraine.
“The current Kyiv regime does not need peace at all,” said President Putin.
“What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who rely on terror?”
It’s exactly what Ukraine has been saying about Russia for the last three years, but there was no mention of that. The Kremlin is in full-on victim mode.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will Putin go nuclear?
The aim, I think, is to turn the tables on Ukraine, cast itself as the injured party and make Donald Trump believe that Russia has a right to respond to the drone attack on its long-range bombers.
The tactic may well have worked.
“President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,” Trump wrote on social media after the call.
Did he try to talk Putin out of responding? We don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like it. If anything, Trump actually announced Russia’s retaliation himself.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more:
Underwater explosives strike bridge linking Russia to Crimea
Russia mercenary group ordered London attack, court hears
And even though Putin discussed the drone attack with Trump, he still hasn’t commented on it in public – four days on.
Russia wants to be seen as the victim, but it doesn’t want to look weak, so an embarrassing episode like that is kept out of the headlines.
World
Putin ‘very strongly’ vowed revenge against Ukraine for drone strike on airbases, Donald Trump says
Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin “very stongly” told him he “will have to respond” to Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russia’s airfields.
More than a hundred Ukrainian drones were deployed inside Russia over the weekend, destroying more than 40 warplanes in an attack Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “will undoubtedly be in history books”.
Posting on Truth Social on Wednesday, the US president said that he discussed the attack with Mr Putin during an hour and 15 minute long phone call.
“It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace,” he wrote after their first call since 19 May.
“President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”
Read our Q&A: Would Putin go nuclear after Ukraine’s daring attacks?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will Putin go nuclear?
The Russian president’s foreign affairs adviser added Mr Trump told Mr Putin that the US did not have advance notice of the operation.
Analysis: Putin is playing the victim to get the US back onside
An aide to Mr Putin also told reporters that they vowed to stay in constant contact, with the Russian president telling Mr Trump that recent talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul were useful.
The US president added that he and Mr Putin also discussed “the fact that time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly,” before accusing Tehran of “slow-walking their decision”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
New Ukraine drone attack video analysed
Russia ‘giving the finger’ – Zelenskyy
Later, Mr Zelenskyy, in a social media post, called for more pressure on Russia to end the war, saying: “Many have spoken with Russia at various levels.
“But none of these talks have brought a reliable peace, or even stopped the war. Unfortunately, Putin feels impunity.”
The Ukrainian leader added that “with every new strike, with every delay of diplomacy, Russia is giving the finger to the entire world – to all those who still hesitate to increase pressure on it”.
👉Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim on your podcast app👈
It comes after Russia’s foreign minister claimed that Mr Zelenskyy refused a proposal for a pause lasting two to three days to pick up the bodies of dead servicemen.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian president said the proposal was not “a real ceasefire”.
He added: “I think they’re idiots because a ceasefire is meant to prevent people from being killed.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway