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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/world/middleeast/west-bank-raids.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU4.zLe8.qUTrJlwXwEaZ&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ngrp=mnp&cbgrp=c">nytimes.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israeli Bulldozers Flatten Mile After Mile in the West Bank</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Erika Solomon, Lauren Leatherby, Aric Toler</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">September 25, 2024<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-site-content"><div id="gmail-top-wrapper"><b><i><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">Despite the source (The NYT) This documentation is important to view to get a sense of what the Zionist strategy is and what actual war crimes are being committed.</span></i></b><br></div><p id="gmail-article-summary">Videos
from Tulkarm and Jenin show bulldozers destroying infrastructure and
businesses, as well as soldiers impeding local emergency responders.</p><p>Sept. 25, 2024, <span>5:04 a.m. ET</span></p><div><p>Over
two weeks, Palestinians watched as Israeli military bulldozers tore up
mile after mile of their streets and alleys, sewage seeping into the
dusty ruts left behind.</p><p>The people of Tulkarm and Jenin, the two
West Bank towns that were the focus of Israel’s latest military raids,
said they had never before experienced such a scale of destruction.</p><p>Residents pointed to one video that shows an Israeli armored bulldozer flattening a decorative roundabout and nearby vegetation.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>QudsN, via Telegram</span></span></span></div><div><p>Visual
evidence analyzed by The New York Times supports accounts from
residents about the damage from Israel’s latest raids. Videos filmed in
Tulkarm and Jenin show bulldozers destroying infrastructure and
businesses, and soldiers impeding local emergency responders.</p></div><div><p>“We
watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses,
pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a
tree in the middle of a road,” said Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of
Jenin, a governorate in the northern West Bank. “What was the point of
all of this?”</p><p>In late August, the Israeli military launched one of
its most extensive and deadliest raids in the West Bank in years, an
escalation from the nearly nightly raids that have become the norm since
the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks.</p><p>Israel has described the operations
as counterterrorism efforts, aimed at rooting out Hamas and other armed
militants who have increased their attacks against Israelis. The
military said it had found stockpiles of weapons in its recent
operations in the northern West Bank, killed 23 militants and arrested
45. One Israeli soldier was killed in Jenin, it said.</p></div><div><p>In
a response to a detailed list of questions from The Times, the Israeli
military said that it operated in accordance with international law and
“undertakes all feasible precautions to avoid damaging essential
infrastructure.” It said military engineers had to undertake such
operations to demine roads or destroy arms stores hidden on private
property.</p><p>But it acknowledged that these “operations in the area have caused unavoidable harm to certain civilian structures.”</p><p>Residents
in Jenin and Tulkarm, towns with a history of rebellion against Israeli
occupation, had long been accustomed to targeted, nighttime raids. But
many of them who spoke to The Times said the raids that lasted for nine
days in Jenin and even longer in Tulkarm went far beyond, noting that
the extent of the damaged roads and infrastructure surpassed any
previous assaults.</p><p>Several districts were declared “disaster
zones,” officials said, because so many buildings were bombed or blown
up that they threatened the stability of the broader neighborhood. And
incursions that once focused on the towns’ refugee camps spread deeper
into other parts of the city.</p><p>Rights groups have also tracked
Israeli forces’ intensifying use of airstrikes in the West Bank, which
they say violates international law.</p></div><div><p>“They
are imposing conditions, materially and psychologically, that make
people feel: Gaza is coming to you,” said Shawan Jabarin, the director
of Al Haq, a rights group based in the West Bank. “There is a feeling
among Palestinians across the West Bank that what is coming is very bad —
that it will be a plan to kill and expel us.”</p><h2 id="gmail-link-6e77014e">A Morning Raid</h2><p>The
most recent operations began early on Aug. 28 when residents of Tulkarm
and Jenin awoke to Israeli military bulldozers ripping up streets.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Reuters</span></span></span></div><div><p>The
digging damaged water and sewage pipes. In Tulkarm, home to one of the
largest refugee camps in the West Bank, videos showed water gushing down
a street from what appeared to be a destroyed water main.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Noursams, via Telegram</span></span></span></div><div><p>For
months, Israeli raids destroyed roads and other infrastructure that
local officials said they repeatedly fixed, only to see their work razed
again in the next assault.</p><p>Muhanad Matar, the head of general
relations for the municipality of Tulkarm, estimated that in the latest
operations alone, more than 90 percent of water and sewage lines had
been destroyed.</p><p>In Jenin, some 70 percent of roads have been
damaged or destroyed by the recent raids, according to the mayor, Nidal
Obeidi. Internet, electricity and phone lines were shut down in some
areas. Sewage and water lines were also cut, leaving about 80 percent of
Jenin without running water, local officials said, including the main
hospital.</p><p>“The problem with trying to calculate the costs is that it doesn’t stop,” Mr. Matar said. “It’s an unending string of raids.”</p><h2 id="gmail-link-241b9677">Businesses Destroyed</h2><p>Israeli
bulldozers have also plowed through commercial areas. Videos showed
them digging up streets in Cinema Square, the heart of Jenin’s business
district.</p></div><div><p>Israel’s
military said the risk of militants hiding explosives necessitated the
use of “engineering tools when entering areas where the terrorist
organizations operate, in order to uncover the axes where explosive
devices were planted, and to remove the danger that arises from the
terrorist organizations’ use of civilian structures.”</p><p>Residents
highlighted such efforts as examples of needless destruction. Local
business owners who spoke to The Times insisted this area had no links
to militants in the city.</p><p>Rami Kmail, 35, is the owner of Rami
Center, overlooking the square — the corner building with a red
storefront seen in the video below.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Reuters</span></span></span></div><div><p>Mr. Kmail said his store had been damaged in 10 Israeli raids since Oct. 7. It has cost him up to $20,000 in repairs each time.</p></div><div><p>Like
other shopkeepers, he has stopped replacing some window panes and shop
signs. “There was no way to keep up with the cost,” he said.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Jenin Municipality, via Facebook</span></span></span></div><div><p>Mr. Kmail insisted this kind of destruction was aimed at hurting society and daily life.</p><p>“It
felt like we were targeted. That was very clear — there was an
intentional effort to destroy businesses,” he said. “They think they’re
teaching people a lesson. The army’s message is: No one is getting out
of this without being punished.”</p><p>The owner of the jewelry store
being bulldozed in the video below said that all of his display cases
were crushed when the facade was destroyed. He spoke on the condition of
anonymity out of concerns for his safety.</p><p>“I think we lost
everything,” he said. Asked if he would reopen, he said: “I don’t know
if we are going to be able to. For now only God knows.”</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><br></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Hisham Abu Shaqrah, via Storyful</span></span></span></div><div><p>In
Tulkarm’s Nur Shams refugee camp, the Kinwa family sold cooking gas
canisters for three decades from the ground floor of the building that
had long been their home in the Manshiya District. It is one of several
districts that municipal officials have declared “disaster zones” to be
evacuated.</p><p>The business, the family said, went up in flames this
month, after Israeli soldiers rigged and detonated explosives in the
shop — ignoring neighbors’ warnings that some 50 gas canisters were
inside.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Kinwa family</span></span></span></div><div><p>“Every
other night, we move and find someone else to stay with,” said Ayman
Al-Kinwa, who ran the family’s business. “We were a big home, and now we
are scattered.”</p></div><div><h2 id="gmail-link-32bac6ef">Unanswered Emergency Calls</h2><p>Perhaps the heaviest cost of the raids has been the effect on medical care.</p><p>Several
videos showed ambulances unable to navigate destroyed roads. Ambulance
drivers said they sometimes could not find alternate routes among the
cratered roads.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>QudsN, via Telegram</span></span></span></div><div><p>Even when roads were intact, Israeli bulldozers, other videos showed, appeared to block emergency vehicles from passing.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>QudsN, via Telegram</span></span></span></div><div><p>Mahmoud
Al-Saadi, the head of the Red Crescent branch in Jenin, said that calls
for help increased significantly during the recent raids. His teams, he
said, failed to respond to 500 to 600 calls per day because they simply
could not reach them.</p></div><div><div><p>The
sudden rise in calls was not only related to the fighting, medics and
municipal officials said, but also to soldiers encircling hospitals. The
soldiers, they said, granted entry only to ambulances and not civilian
vehicles, so rescuers also had to escort patients needing regular
treatments, like dialysis or radiation.</p><p>One video showed Israeli soldiers inspecting an ambulance in Jenin.</p></div><p><br>Israel’s
military, in response to The Times, said it “does not intend to harm
medical personnel. However, in several cases, terrorists have carried
out terror attacks via the exploitation of ambulances and medical
institutions.”</p><p>As a result, the army said it “has been compelled,
in some instances, to search ambulances leaving the camps and villages,”
but said it tried to minimize the delays.</p><p>Mr. Al-Saadi said some of his teams were forced to wait for long periods of time, putting some patients’ lives at risk.</p><p>With
evacuations so difficult, many volunteers said they put together
first-aid kits to treat people at their homes. And in cases where
emergency vehicles could not reach people, some Red Crescent officials
said, teams sometimes guided people through treatments by phone until
one could.</p></div><div><p>“This is
collective punishment,” said Laith Hassan, 25, a volunteer for the Red
Crescent in Tulkarm. “I don’t know what else you could call it.”</p><h2 id="gmail-link-3e6bd7a7">Increase in Airstrikes</h2><p>Since
the second intifada, or uprising, ended in the early 2000s, Israeli
airstrikes on the West Bank have been extremely rare. After Oct. 7,
airstrikes by drones, fighter jets and helicopters increased rapidly,
killing 41 Palestinians in August alone — more than at any point in
close to two decades, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs and the rights group Al-Haq.</p></div><div><p>In
its latest raid, the Israeli military said it carried out 50 airstrikes
“on buildings, infrastructure, and weapon storage sites.” It also said
it launched targeted strikes on militants.</p><p>A video posted by the
military shows what appears to be gunmen being corralled by an Israeli
military vehicle. When they open fire and try to flee, an airstrike
kills one as they run away.</p></div><div><div><p><span>Video</span></p><div><p><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/09/13/13visualUploader-80901-cover/13visualUploader-80901-cover-square640.jpg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"></p></div></div><span><span>Credit</span><span><span>Credit...</span><span>Israel Defense Forces</span></span></span></div><div><p>Such
airstrikes violate Israel’s obligations under international law, said
Sari Bashi, a program director for Human Rights Watch, which stipulates
that an occupying power must conduct security operations as a policing
force, not an army.</p><p>“One of our concerns is that lethal force is
actually a first resort — that the Israeli military is trying to kill
people, as opposed to arrest them, under circumstances where it’s
possible to arrest them,” she said.</p><p>Israel’s army said that it had
complied with international law, and that aerial strikes “are carried
out in cases where the option of arrest was ruled out in view of the
immediate risk to the forces.”</p><p>The U.N. office and Al-Haq have
both documented more than 150 Palestinians killed by airstrikes in the
West Bank since Oct. 7. Palestinians in Jenin and Tulkarm say they
increasingly fear the drones that almost constantly circle overhead.
Medics and municipal workers repairing roads say they have come under
drone surveillance, and have sometimes been fired on.</p></div><div><p>“They even shot at my car,” said Mr. Obeidi, Jenin’s mayor.</p><p>Some Palestinian men, like the shop owner Mr. Al-Kinwa, say they now avoid going outside or gathering in groups.</p><p>“The fear of drone strikes is with me 24 hours a day,” he said. “It’s there even when I sleep.”</p><p>The
intensity of these latest raids, some residents warn, may backfire
against Israel’s efforts to ensure its security and lead to more people
joining groups like Hamas.</p><p>“If you deliberately destroy the place,
what do you think those people are going to do?” asked the shopkeeper
Mr. Kmail. “Israel just added to the numbers in the resistance.”</p><p>Video production by Ainara Tiefenthäler.</p></div><div><p><span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/aric-toler">Aric Toler</a></span>
is a reporter on the Visual Investigations team at The Times where he
uses emerging techniques of discovery to analyze open source
information.<span> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/aric-toler">More about Aric Toler</a></span></p></div></div></div></div>
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