West Bank is heating up

Mourners carry the bodies of three Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli drone strike, during their funeral at Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank October 25, 2023.
Mourners carry the bodies of three Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli drone strike, during their funeral at Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank October 25, 2023.
REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

While much of the world’s attention remains on Gaza, the situation is deteriorating fast in the occupied West Bank, where security operations by Israel and violent attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians have increased over the past two weeks.

The (very simplified) background: Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. The 2.5 million Palestinians living there are governed locally by the Palestinian Authority, which is led by the Fatah party, the main secular rival to Hamas. Fatah renounced violence in the 1990s as part of negotiations meant to reach a two-state solution with Israel. Since then, Jewish settlements, which are illegal under international law and often displace Palestinian homes, have expanded significantly — there are now more than 700,000 West Bank settlers. Israel maintains tight security control over the West Bank, in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.

Even before the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, 2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since at least 2008. Over the past two weeks, things have gotten worse: Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed as many as 100 Palestinians, according to Palestinian sources, while some 1,400 people have been detained.

Israel says it is moving to uproot Hamas and other terrorist operatives entrenched in the West Bank. In July, Israel launched its biggest West Bank operation in years, targeting militants, weapons caches, and bomb-making facilities in the northern city of Jenin.

On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike there leveled a mosque the IDF said was housing a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command post. Recent reports suggest Iran has been flooding the West Bank with weapons that wind up in the hands of militant groups.

Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, meanwhile, has warned that “state-backed settler violence” has also been rising in recent weeks, as armed settlers harass and attack ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank.

Who’s in charge? All of this puts aging Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in a difficult position. The 87-year-old, chain-smoking PA chief is considered widely unpopular due to the perception that Fatah has achieved little for Palestinians after more than two decades of cooperating with Israel.

As casualties in Gaza mount, while Israeli operations intensify in a West Bank increasingly saturated with weapons, Palestinians’ frustrations there risk boiling over in ways that Abbas may not be able to control. If so, a second front of the current conflict could open up in the east, even as Lebanon-based Hezbollah weighs opening its own front in the north.

More from GZERO Media

Rescuers search for a 17-year-old and his parents near an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, on April 24, 2025.
REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that this week is “very critical” for Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine. Russia’s Vladimir Putin made news on Monday by offering a three-day ceasefire beginning on May 8, a move perhaps motivated by skeptical recent comments from Trump on Russia’s willingness to bargain in good faith.

- YouTube

On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, two authors—Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen and historian Mai Elliottwith deeply personal ties to the Vietnam War, reflect on its lasting global impact and Vietnam's remarkable rise 50 years later.

Jordan Bardella, president of Rassemblement National or National Rally, gives a speech and flies French flags at a rally in support of Marine le Pen after her conviction on April 6, 2025.

Bastien Ohier/Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old president of France’s far-right National Rally, aka RN, has announced his readiness to run for the country’s presidency in 2027 if current party leader Marine Le Pen remains barred from contesting the race.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump meet while they attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican on April 26, 2025.
TPX Images via Reuters

At the Vatican on Saturday, US President Donald Trump sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a meeting the White House described as “very productive,” and which Zelensky said had the “potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”