TEHRAN – The Israeli regime’s escalating West Bank assault, driven by annexation aims, fuels Palestinian resistance and a consequent rise in civilian casualties.

The killing of three Palestinians on Tuesday during an Israeli airstrike and raid in the Jenin area marks another deadly chapter in the Israeli regime’s military campaign against the occupied West Bank. 

As the world’s focus remains on the genocide in Gaza, the occupying regime has intensified its operations in the West Bank, which it has occupied illegally since 1967, signaling an attempt not just to suppress resistance, but to entrench control amid renewed calls from far-right Zionist leaders for full annexation.

The latest attack took place in the village of Kafr Qud, west of Jenin, where Israeli occupation forces besieged a family home. After hours of gunfire and explosions, the regime’s aircraft struck the site, killing three Palestinians. 

Local witnesses reported that Israeli occupation forces had surrounded the area with bulldozers and armored vehicles before launching the assault.

Airstrikes inside the West Bank, once rare, now reflect a broader strategic shift. The regime’s army has increasingly resorted to heavy weaponry and aerial bombardment in densely populated Palestinian areas such as Jenin and Nablus. 

The change underscores both the Zionist regime’s frustration at the growing capacity of Palestinian resistance groups and the regime’s political turn toward annexation under an extremist government that rejects any form of Palestinian statehood.

Earlier, Israeli occupation forces carried out a wave of raids across Nablus, al-Khalil (Hebron), Ramallah, and Jericho, arresting dozens, including former prisoners, and wounding several others. 

Bulldozers destroyed farmlands near al-Khalil, while settlers, emboldened by political support from ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have escalated violent attacks on Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest.

According to the United Nations, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 40 Palestinian children in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, with Jenin alone accounting for more than 68 deaths, nearly a third of all fatalities across the occupied territories. 

The UN has also documented over 90 attacks on schools and more than 80 settler assaults since early October, many targeting olive harvesters. These patterns, human rights experts warn, point to a systematic campaign to make life untenable for Palestinians and accelerate annexation.

Palestinians argue that the growing armed resistance is a direct response to occupation, settlement expansion, and the absence of political prospects. 

The newly emerging resistance networks in the northern West Bank are predominantly composed of young Palestinians whose formative years have been shaped by continuous military rule, nightly raids, and the collapse of peace initiatives.

As Gaza dominates headlines, the West Bank is becoming a second front, one, where the Israeli regime’s drive for territorial control and Palestinians’ determination to resist occupation are colliding more violently than at any point in recent memory. 

The growing use of airstrikes shows that the Israeli regime’s military operations in the West Bank are turning into open warfare, erasing any remaining illusion that the Zionist occupation is temporary.