The ‘Gazafication’ of the West Bank may be inevitable

Palestinians are openly speaking about the “Gazafication” of the West Bank. To put that into perspective, this would mean the near-total destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure and the forced displacement of 90 percent of the population, without even considering the casualties involved.

Is this the next sorry chapter for Palestine?

The pre-Oct. 7 West Bank situation was appalling enough. Settler violence was at a record high, as was settlement construction. The global human rights community was nearly unanimous in accusing Israel of operating systematic discrimination in the West Bank — the crime of apartheid. Some 750,000 settlers have exclusive privileged rights under Israeli civil law, whereas Palestinians endure martial law and imprisonment in detention centers, where evidence shows they are regularly abused and tortured.

Yet, as Israeli forces last week launched the largest military operation in the West Bank since 2002, one wonders how far this could go.

Some of the tactics will be eerily familiar to Gazans. Airstrikes for starters. The targeting of hospitals, clinics and medical infrastructure for another. The way in which Israel has monopolized the water infrastructure also echoes the process in Gaza.

The harsh reality is that Israel has the means, motive and opportunity.

All the infrastructure is there: the wall, the mounds, the checkpoints and the systems of control

Chris Doyle

Israel has crushed the Palestinian population in Gaza and made the enclave effectively uninhabitable. Palestinian communities in the West Bank may face this same process.

The West Bank could well morph into the caged system of Gaza, even challenging it for the unwanted title of the world’s largest prison camp. All the infrastructure is there: the wall, the mounds, the checkpoints and the systems of control.

Israel’s declared intent is there too. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed for years for the annexation of Area C. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich promised 1 million new settlers in the West Bank just two months ago. Emptying the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills of Palestinian communities is a process that will now be jet-propelled.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz was hardly reassuring when he posted on X: “We must address this (terror) threat by all necessary means, including, in some cases of intense combat, allowing the population to temporarily (evacuate) from one neighborhood to another within the refugee camp to prevent civilian harm and to enable the dismantling of terror infrastructures established there.”

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell responded: “It is still more worrisome the call from the minister for foreign affairs of Israel to displace people from the West Bank, doing more or less the same thing that they did with the people in Gaza. This is completely unacceptable.”

Katz tweeted back: “I oppose the displacement of any population from their homes.” Some comment given the monumental displacement of Palestinians his government has overseen.

If it can get away with genocide in Gaza, what else can Israel do? That is what many on the Israeli right are asking

Chris Doyle

Iran will be the excuse. Israeli ministers have been falling over themselves to say that Iran has opened up an eastern front in the West Bank. This is all a little too convenient, predictable and lacking in evidence.

In terms of the Palestinian leadership, this Israeli coalition is likely to start treating the Palestinian Authority just like Hamas unless it acts as the occupier’s poodle. Senior ministers want to see the PA eradicated, just as they do Hamas.

Yet it could be argued that Gaza is about to get the West Bank treatment as well. Settlers are queuing up for Gaza real estate to colonize, even planting trees to symbolically claim the land. Israel has apparently segmented the enclave into three, as it was pre-2005, and that could be just the start. Settlements in Gaza would also see the reintroduction of the same regime of apartheid as in the West Bank; two laws for two peoples, with superior rights for Israeli Jews at every level.

None of this means that there is a clear-cut Israeli government plan. The coalition is too incoherent for that. But there are a series of commonly held ambitions that, amid the current horrors, could be opportunistically realized. These include the retaking of Gaza, with a degree of ethnic cleansing, aims which have already been pretty much achieved. It could mean further major land transfers to Israel in the West Bank, leading to the annexation of Area C at least, with major Palestinian displacement into already overcrowded cities. And it could mean the crushing of all forms of Palestinian leadership and governance structures.

The cherry on the cake would be the final smashing of the status quo agreements on the holy places in Jerusalem, leading — in the most alarming scenario — to a synagogue on Al-Haram Al-Sharif, as promised by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

It is naked Israeli opportunism on steroids, facilitated by US complicity and the ineptitude of the rest of the international community. If it can get away with genocide in Gaza, what else can Israel do? That is what many on the Israeli right are asking. But it is also brought about by the gouging out of the Israeli political center and left and the utter failure of the existing Palestinian leaderships.

None of these scenarios are inevitable. Yet, with every passing week of unhalted, unbridled Israeli atrocities, the unthinkable becomes thinkable, even inevitable.

• Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech