Zionist settlers are intensifying their killing spree across the occupied West Bank. On 21 April at Mughayyir school, a reservist settler shot 14-year-old student Aws al-Nassan in the head, before killing nearby construction worker Jihad Abu Naim. Hours later, settlers bulldozed another school in the village of Hammamat al-Maleh, mimicking the genocidal operations which have damaged or destroyed 90% of schools in Gaza. Armed by the state, no settlers have faced imprisonment for their actions since 2020.
In early May, Avi Bluth, Israeli army chief for the occupied West Bank, boasted that the occupation army was killing ‘like we haven’t since 1967’, having killed 1,500 West Bank Pales-tinians in the past three years, including 42 Palestinians accused of throwing stones in 2025. Uniformed and settler forces carry out summary executions, mass internment, house demolitions (often with residents inside), uprooting of trees and crops, destroying infra-structure and other dirty tactics.
For over 500 days, the refugee camps at Tulkarem and Nour Shams have remained besieged and occupied, with over 25,000 people displaced and constant acts of destruction and aggression from the occupiers. Continuing to face resistance, invading forces warned residents to evacuate Tulkarem on 8 May in preparation for their homes being blown up. Amidst these attacks, students, teachers and families have set up outdoor classes and engaged in daily demonstrations. In a display of mass anger across the West Bank, Palestinians met the passage of the death penalty bill with defiant protests in early April, including a general strike.
Responding to these escalating crimes, Hamas leader Abdul Rahman Shadid called on Palestinians to ‘strengthen all means of confrontation and protection, to mobilise, stand together and unite ranks to confront settler attacks.’ Despite huge military operations targeting Jenin, Tulkarem and a long list of other resistance centres, the struggle against occupation continually finds new recruits. Showing rejection of the PLO platform of negotiations and collaboration with imperialism, polling by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) across Palestine shows that ‘Palestinians increasingly view resis-tance rather than international legal frameworks as the path to achieving their rights.’
PCPSR reports that conditions faced by West Bank Palestinians lead them ‘to preserve harder-line positions rooted in political principle, historical grievances, and concerns about normalisation and Arab state “betrayal”.’ The sledgehammer of Zionist repression has hit resistance groups hard, decapitating leaderships and instituting collective punishment reminiscent of British tactics in Palestine before 1948. Prisoners are again on the frontlines and there are signs that the threat of execution may precipitate broader popular struggle.
Louis Brehony
