Since 19 January 2025, on the same day as the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) and Israeli settlers have been intensifying their attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. This included a campaign of mass arrests, such as that carried out in Azzun town, Qalqilya on 20 January, and stringent restrictions on the freedom of movement, including increased checkpoints, iron gates at villages and towns’ entrances, and road blocks, effectively trapping 3.3 million Palestinians across the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem. Concurrently, Israeli settlers, under the protection of the IOF, carried out violent attacks against Palestinians in several areas, including in Sinjil, Ramallah Governorate on 19 January, by setting Palestinian homes and vehicles on fire, and stone throwing, resulting in a number of injuries, fractures, and cases of burns and suffocation that required medical treatment.

Two days later, on 21 January, the IOF launched an ongoing large-scale military attack, dubbed “Iron Wall”, targeting Jenin governorate. This involves the imposition of a total siege on Jenin refugee camp, the use of the extensive deployment of military forces, including hundreds of Israeli occupying soldiers and snipers, the recourse to airstrikes and reconnaissance drones, and an array of military vehicles, including D9 and D10 bulldozers.  The majority of Jenin refugee camp residents have been forcibly displaced. Many of whom were ordered by the IOF to leave through one route of exit and were reportedly searched as they left the Camp, during which some were arrested. The remaining families are living in grave danger with no access to water, electricity, and other basic services. The IOF has also besieged the Jenin Governorate Hospital, where a number of Palestinian patients, their companions, and medical staff are sheltering, and whose facilities are already overwhelmed and is running out of food, water, and fuel. On top of that, the IOF deliberately damaged the road infrastructure around the hospital, preventing ambulances from reaching it. All the roads leading to the Jenin refugee camp, as well as some roads in the Camp and Jenin city, have been bulldozed. Additionally, the IOF has been destroying Palestinian homes in the Camp, including by using bulldozers, bombings, and setting homes on fire.

Alarmingly, on 27 January, the IOF extended the ongoing military attack to Tulkarem governorate, including Tulkarem city and Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps. The IOF has forcibly displaced many Palestinian families from Tulkarem refugee camp, leaving them without shelter, and continues to destroy the infrastructure and homes in the Camp. The Tulkarem Governmental Hospital has also been besieged by the IOF. The siege imposed on Tulkarem and Jenin cities and refugee camps is preventing Palestinians from accessing basic daily needs, as it restricts residents’ movement and imposes a reign of terror on the residents.

As of time of publishing, the IOF killed 20 Palestinians, including two children across the Jenin and Tulkarem governorates over nine days, according to Al-Haq’s initial monitoring. Of those, 10 Palestinians were killed on the first day of the military attack, 21 January, many of whom as they were trying to leave Jenin refugee camp and surrounding areas. Further, it is reported that around 45 Palestinians were injured in Jenin. Incidents of IOF attacks on journalists and medical personnel have also been reported. The military attack is still ongoing, so are the siege of both Jenin and Tulkarem Governmental Hospitals, the destruction of infrastructure and demolition of homes.

The ongoing military attack on Jenin and Tulkarem governorates is taking place in the context of at least three years of escalating violence in the West Bank. Israel is employing in Jenin and Tulkarem the same unlawful methods it uses in Gaza, particularly attacks on hospitals and health care facilities, and the use of excessive and indiscriminate force, causing extensive destruction. The situation in the northern West Bank is a painful reminder of the first weeks that followed 7 October 2023, involving Israeli genocidal incitements, Palestinian infrastructures and civilians being systematically targeted by the IOF, forcing Palestinians to flee for their lives to shelters where they are deprived of food and basic conditions for human survival. Indeed, the genocidal rhetoric and incitement from Israeli officials, which has characterised the atrocities in Gaza, is increasingly applied to all Palestnians. For instance, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz referred to the military attack on Jenin as “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza”. During the August-September 2024 IOF attack on the Jenin refugee camp, Israel Katz, declared Israel’s intention to use “the same determination” with refugee camps in northern West Bank just as with Gaza, “including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and any necessary measures”. Moreover, Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for widespread violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, drawing a comparison to Israel’s destruction of Gaza, saying: “Funduq, Nablus and Jenin need to look like Jabalia”. In November 2023, Minister Smotrich stated “There are two millions Nazis in Judea and Samaria, who hate us exactly as do the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS in Gaza”.

The military attack carried out by the IOF in Jenin comes after more than a month of armed clashes inside Jenin refugee camp between the Palestinian Authority Forces and Palestinian armed actors, which Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA stated left Jenin refugee camp “nearly uninhabitable”. As a result, Palestinians suffered electricity blackouts, hindered access to essential services, and restrictions on movement –– actions which constitute a form of prohibited collective punishment, and which left the Camp and its residents in a very vulnerable state.

As a fragile ceasefire takes place in Gaza, Al-Haq warns that Israel’s genocidal tactics to destroy the Palestinian group are further evident in the West Bank, including Jerusalem. IOF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi instructed the Israeli military on 20 January 2025 to “formulate plans for the continuation of the fighting, both in the Gaza Strip” and for “significant operations” in the West Bank. On 21 January, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese warned that “Israel’s death machinery escalated its firing in the West Bank . . . If it is not forced to stop, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians will not be confined to Gaza. Mark my words”.

Al-Haq reiterates that Israel’s genocide is continuing in breach of the International Court of Justices’s (ICJ) Provisional Measures orders in Gaza, with acts of killings and continued denial of conditions for basic survival documented since the ceasefire. Between 22 and 28 January, 193 Palestinians were killed and 397 injured in Gaza. This includes “cases where Israeli forces opened fire at Palestinians, including in areas in or near the identified buffer zones under the ceasefire agreement”. Minister Smotrich reported that commitments had been secured for “a complete victory through a gradual takeover of the entire Gaza Strip, the removal of the restrictions imposed on us by the Biden administration, and full control of the Strip, so that humanitarian aid will not reach Hamas”. Minister Ben Gvir stated on 25 January, “We must return to war. And destroy”. The current U.S. administration has also made remarks suggesting the forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Arab countries, advancing proposals made by several Israeli officials since the start of the genocide in Gaza.

Al-Haq further reiterates that Israel’s genocidal, colonial violence must be understood with its broader Zionist aims to eliminate and replace the indigenous Palestinian people with Jewish-Israelis, as part of the ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people. Notably, this is demonstrated through the ongoing military attack, as its name, “Iron Wall”, is not arbitrary. It refers to the ideology through which Vladimir Jabotinsky, an early Zionist leader, viewed the development of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine to be possible. Jabotinsky wrote that “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population –– behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach”. Without addressing the root causes, Israel’s genocidal violence against the Palestinian people will persist.

In its July 2024 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel, the Occupying Power, through its policies and practices has annexed large parts of the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT). Previously, in 2020, the Trump Administration, unveiled a plan openly endorsing Israel’s annexation of over 30 percent of the West Bank. Al-Haq warns that further conduct by Israeli authorities to consolidate its permanent control over the OPT is accelerating, as Israeli officials assure that annexation is “on the table”.

The decades-long failure of the international community, and of High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to stand up against Israel’s manifest violations of international law facilitates the climate of impunity by which Israeli authorities are perpetrating its genocidal, colonial violence against the Palestinian people. To put an end to such violence, all states must immediately abide by their obligations under international law, particularly in light of the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 2024, requiring that Israel end its illegal presence in and remove settlers from the OPT.

In light of the above, we call on the international community and on all Third States, including High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to:

• Address the root causes of the genocide, by dismantling Israel’s Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime and ending the illegal occupation;
• Ensure that Palestinians exercise their right of return to what is left of their homes in Gaza in safety, protection, and dignity, and ensure the provision of shelter, food and medical care to displaced Palestinians in the OPT, and refrain from subjecting Palestinians to deportation outside the OPT or forcible transfer within it;
• Impose sanctions, including banking, financial, economic, trade and diplomatic sanctions on Israel;
• Impose a two-way military embargo, encompassing all arms, military technology, security surveillance equipment, jet fuel, training and joint exercises, and stopping all export, import and transfer, including parts and components and other dual-use items, to and from Israel;
• Impose targeted sanctions on complicit persons and institutions –– Israeli and international –– contributing toIsrael’s international crimes against Palestinians;
• Investigate and prosecute nationals, who are involved in international crimes against Palestinians, including dual citizens serving in Israel’s military, and including mercenaries or those involved in settler violence;
• Activate universal jurisdiction mechanisms to hold suspected perpetrators of international crimes accountable;
• Review all diplomatic, political, and economic interactions with Israel to ensure they do not support or provide aid or assistance to its unlawful presence in the OPT, or to its violations of international humanitarian law;
• Cancel or suspend economic relationships and trade agreements with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and to breaches of international humanitarian law in the oPt; and
• Use the opportunity provided at the planned Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions in March 2025 to identify and ensure, in light of Israel’s ongoing repudiation and violation of orders of the ICJ, the effective enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention.