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Thursday, April 11, 2024

West Bank resistance bolstered by smuggled Iranian weapons: Report

April 11, 2024
Violence has significantly spiked in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, as Israeli troops have killed hundreds of Palestinians and detained thousands more
 
Iran has been conducting a covert smuggling operation for at least two years to provide the Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank with guns and ammunition to confront the occupying Israeli forces, according to a recent investigation by the New York Times (NYT).
The weapons Iran has been sending to the West Bank mainly consist of handguns and assault rifles, while the operation relies on the assistance of resistance factions, local gangs, and Bedouin smugglers.
Officials from Iran, the US, and Israel who spoke with NYT say that operatives from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force have established two routes that reach the West Bank. The first sees the weapons cross from Iraq toward Syria and into Jordan, where Bedouins take the shipment and transfer them to “criminal gangs” in Israel.
“One of the Iranian officials said increased security since [7 October] by both Israel and Jordan, has raised the risk of getting caught, especially for Bedouins and Arab-Israelis who play critical roles for their ability to cross borders,” the NYT reports.
In April 2023, Jordanian lawmaker Imad al-Adwan was arrested in the kingdom for transporting weapons in his car while traveling to the occupied West Bank.
The other route reportedly used by the IRGC sees the weapons skip Jordan and instead go from Syria into Lebanon before reaching Israel. However, this route is described as “more challenging” as cross-border fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah “is more heavily patrolled by both the Israeli military and UN peacekeepers.”
US and Israeli officials who spoke with the NYT said that the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus last week was aimed at disrupting their operations, adding that Division 4000 and Division 18840 of the IRGC are involved in the smuggling operation.
In 2014, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for the arming of the West Bank “as the only solution to confront this brutal entity.”
“The solution is total armed resistance against this regime … Therefore, it is my belief that the West Bank should be armed just like Gaza. Anyone who cares about the fate of Palestine and who is capable of doing something should provide arms to the people [of the West Bank] too,” Khamenei said at the time.
“There was a great focus in order for the West Bank to move from a state of coexistence and calm, to a state of resistance that we see today, and of course all of this is under the directives of Ali Khamenei … During our last meeting with him in Tehran, he renewed the call for that and for the development of resistance in the West Bank,” the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Ziyad al-Nakhalah, said during a speech in Tehran earlier this month.
“It would not have been easy for the Palestinian people to withstand this battle had it not been for Iran’s continuous and consistent support at all political, military, and security levels,” he added.
On Wednesday, a Lebanese man accused of serving as a middleman tasked with transferring funds from the IRGC to the Palestinian resistance in Gaza was found murdered in Lebanon, in an apparent Mossad operation.
 
Qassam Muaddi
Casualties
  • 33,545 + killed* and at least 76,049 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
  • 456+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
  • Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,139.
  • 604 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 6,800 injured.***
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on April 9, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the PA’s Ministry of Health on April 5, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The number of Israeli soldiers wounded is according to Israeli media reports.
Key Developments
  • Israel kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 in the past 24 hours across Gaza, raising the death toll since October 7 to 33,482 and the number of wounded to 76,049, according to the Gaza health ministry.
  • Israel kills six members of Hamas chief’s family, including three sons and three grandchildren in al-Shati’ refugee camp in northern Gaza.
  • Israeli army launches dozens of strikes on al-Nuseirat refugee camp and its surroundings.
  • Israeli army targets fishing dock in Gaza City.
  • Israel and Iran conduct air maneuvers.
  • Axios quoting Israeli officials: Israel is preparing for an Iranian attack, coordinating with the U.S.
  • Israel’s Channel 12: Netanyahu didn’t keep his promise to Biden to open Asdod port for humanitarian aid.
  • Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir asks war minister Yoav Gallant not to allow the release of body of Walid Daqqah.
  • Israeli police to open investigation against Palestinian professor at Tel Aviv University for “terror incitement” after mourning the death of Walid Daqqah on social media.
  • West Bank: Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages, torch cars.
  • West Bank: Israeli forces raid Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem, villages in Bethlehem and Hebron.
Israel kills 63 Palestinians, wounds 45 across Gaza
The Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry announced that 122 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes, their bodies arriving at the Gaza Strip’s remaining hospitals alongside 56 other wounded people over the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, Israeli forces killed six family members of chief of Hamas’s politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, in an airstrike on a car they were driving in at al-Shati refugee camp. The victims include three of Haniyeh’s sons and three of his grandchildren, aged 5, 8, and 10 years old. Israel also bombed a family house on al-Nafaq Street in Gaza City, wounding several people.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli forces launched a series of airstrikes on the surroundings of the Nuseirat refugee camp, and then on the northern and western parts of Nusseirat. Israeli ground forces raided the camp through the village of Mighraqa and the town of al-Zahra, where they destroyed several residential towers.
Palestinian sources reported testimonies that shrapnel from the demolition landed inside an UNRWA school used as shelter by displaced Palestinian families, causing panic.
In the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medical teams continued to recover dead bodies from across Khan Younis, three days after Israeli forces withdrew from the city. Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes bombed farming land near Rafah.
Iran and Israel escalate threats, conduct maneuvers
The Israeli public broadcasting channel said on Wednesday that the Israeli air force conducted long-range air drills in conjunction with the Air Force of Cyprus.
The public broadcaster also said that the drills come in preparation for a potential Iranian attack as a response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus in early April, which killed seven Iranian officials.
Simultaneously, the Iranian news agency Mahr reported on X that Tehran’s airspace was closed for airplanes due to military drills on Wednesday. The agency later deleted the tweet.
On Tuesday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei repeated vows to avenge the bombing of the country’s consulate, stressing that Israel “will be punished.”
Meanwhile, ِAxios quoted officials in the U.S. defense department saying that Israel’s military was coordinating with the U.S. to respond to Iran’s threats.
The website reported that the U.S. central command chief will visit the region on Thursday and might visit Israel to coordinate a response to a potential Iranian attack.
Israeli settlers attack Palestinian villages in the West Bank, Israeli army raids Qalandia
Israeli settlers attacked late on Wednesday the villages of Lebban, south of Nablus, and Mughayer, east of Ramallah, setting fire to two cars, The attacks come one day after settlers set fire to a sheep barrack in the village of Burqa, west of Nablus.
In Lebban, a local resident who asked not to be named told Mondoweiss that settlers entered the village through surrounding hills around at 3 a.m., throwing rocks at houses while writing racist, anti-Palestinian slogans on walls and setting fire to one car. Settlers also tried to set fire to a house, but residents gathered and confronted them until they withdrew.
Residents’ accounts indicate that the Israeli army was stationed on the main road outside of the village throughout the settler attack and didn’t intervene.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army raided the Qalandia refugee camp in the northern periphery of Jerusalem, arresting a Palestinian man.
A resident in Qalandia told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces raided the camp before dawn and fired tear gas and live bullets at local youth who confronted the invading force by throwing stones. Residents’ accounts detailed that Israeli soldiers took over rooftops and searched water tanks.
Israeli forces have repeatedly raided Qalandia during the past month of Ramadan, often exchanging fire with local gunmen.
A resident told Mondoweiss that “the most difficult part during Ramadan was the repeated closures of the camp. They prevented residents from leaving for long hours, especially on Fridays when people tried to reach the al-Aqsa mosque. We eventually held prayers in the street at the camp’s entrance.”
Israeli forces also raided the town of al-Aizaryah in Jerusalem’s outskirts, arresting four teenagers. In Tulkarem, Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians.
Raids also targeted the villages of Taqoa, south of Bethlehem, Bir al-Basha, south of Jenin, and Idna, west of Hebron, arresting in total at least 12 Palestinians across the West Bank.
Since October 7, Israeli forces have arrested over 8,100 Palestinians. Currently, Israel holds at least 9,400 Palestinians in its jails, including 71 women, 200 children, and more than 3,600 detainees without charges under the Israeli system of administrative detention.
 
RT
Iranian strike on Israel ‘imminent’ – media
Iran feels obligated to punish Israel for attacking its diplomatic mission in Syria because the UN Security Council has failed in its duty, Tehran’s mission to the global organization said on Thursday.
The April 1 airstrike killed seven Iranian officers, including two generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated,” the mission posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Israel “must and shall be punished” for what it did. Israeli and US intelligence have fueled speculation that possible reprisals could entail anything from drone attacks to ballistic missile strikes.
Israel has been bracing for some kind of response for over a week, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) canceling all leave and starting to spoof GPS signals.
Reports on Wednesday, sources linked to anonymous US intelligence officials spoke of an imminent Iranian strike within 24-48 hours, following the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the feast of Eid-al-Fitr. Brent oil futures have risen above $90 per barrel in anticipation.
British-based media have reported that Israel has been preparing to attack Iranian nuclear program facilities in the event of a missile strike. The US government has declared it would back West Jerusalem against Tehran, but anonymous claims that American jets would join Israeli strikes have not been officially confirmed.
 
Palestine Chronicle Staff
The Israeli army began a surprise military operation in the central Gaza Strip, in the vicinity of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The Israeli war council will meet tonight to discuss a possible Iranian retaliation to the attack on the consulate in Damascus.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Tel Aviv is obligated to continue the war and invade Rafah.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 33,545 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,0949 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
LATEST UPDATES
Thursday, April 11, 5:00 pm (GMT+2)
UNSC: Council members call for the immediate lifting of all obstacles to aid reaching Gaza.
AL-JAZEERA: Four missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards the Ramtha site in the occupied Kfar Shuba hills.
KAN: An Israeli F-15 fighter jet that attacked Gaza made an emergency landing at Tel Nof Air Base “after a technical malfunction”.
Thursday, April 11, 4:00 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI MEDIA: A demonstration by Haredi Jews took place in Jerusalem in protest against a draft law requiring them to undergo conscription into the Israeli army.
WALLA (citing former Israeli Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan): We are stuck in Gaza with no real goals or exit strategy.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Six Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted the popular Firas Market in Gaza City.
AL-JAZEERA: Two people were injured as a result of an Israeli bombing on a house in the new camp, north of Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Violent clashes are taking place between the resistance and the occupation on the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Thursday, April 11, 3:00 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: We bombed “terrorist” targets underground and above ground in Gaza.
ISRAELI ARMY: We opened fire to remove a threat in the Tayr Harfa area in southern Lebanon.
AL-JAZEERA: Two people were killed in a bombing on a home for the Al-Batsh family in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, south of Gaza City.
Thursday, April 11, 2:00 pm (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Two more people were killed as a result of the continuous Israeli bombing of the northern areas of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY: 33,545 Palestinians have been killed, and 76,0949 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Thursday, April 11, 1:30 pm (GMT+2)
GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTRY: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock discussed with her Iranian counterpart the tense situation in the Middle East.
ISRAELI PM NETANYAHU: We are preparing for scenarios and challenges from other fields.
YEDIOTH AHRONOTH: More than 100 Israeli female soldiers refused to work in the surveillance unit.
Thursday, April 11, 12:30 pm (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: The death toll resulting from an Israeli raid in the El Geneina neighborhood, east of Rafah, has risen to six.
CNN: Iran warned Washington against supporting Israel.
Thursday, April 11, 11:30 am (GMT+2)
AL-QUDS BRIGADES: We took control of an Israeli Quadcopter aircraft.
AL-JAZEERA: Three Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted Palestinians in the Al-Geneina neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah.
MAARIV: Former Israeli Justice Minister Ham Ramon said that the war ended with a strategic defeat for Israel. The war did not achieve its goals and the Chief of Staff must submit his resignation.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Intelligence reports talk about a possible imminent attack on Israeli assets.
Thursday, April 11, 11:00 am (GMT+2)
ABC (citing informed source): Israel’s regional interests are at great risk. Iran may retaliate with a proportionate response targeting an Israeli diplomatic facility or by striking Israel directly.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Israeli artillery shelling and intense raids targeted the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI ARMY: The 162nd Division began a surprise military operation in the central Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI ARMY RADIO: The army began a military operation in the vicinity of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
UNICEF: UNICEF announced that its vehicle was hit by live ammunition while it was waiting to enter the northern Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel.
Thursday, April 11, 10:00 am (GMT+2)
ISRAELI MEDIA: The Israeli War Council is meeting today in light of threats of a possible Iranian response to the bombing of the consulate in Damascus.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Israeli aircraft bombed the Nuseirat camp, coinciding with clashes between the resistance and invading Israeli forces.
SMOTRICH: We are obligated to continue fighting terrorism and deepen our operations in Rafah.
HAARETZ: The army’s claims that the sons of Ismail Haniyeh were on their way to carry out an attack are not accepted even by Hamas’s opponents because their children were with them.
ISRAELI INTERIOR MINISTER: There is no reason to prevent the Haredim from joining the army.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Two people were killed in a bombing by Israeli boats on the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City.
RUSSIAN FM: The October 7 attack should not be used as an excuse to punish millions of Palestinians.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Five Palestinians were killed and a number were wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted a school and a residential building in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
LIEBERMAN: Netanyahu must transfer power in Gaza to Egypt.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: he bodies of two Palestinians were recovered following an Israeli bombing on an apartment in Burj Al-Salhi, north of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
AL-JAZEERA: he Israeli occupation bombed the Fishermen’s Port and its surroundings, west of Gaza City.7
ISRAELI ARMY RADIO: the Air Force carried out a joint exercise in recent days with its Cypriot counterpart in which it trained for long-range attacks and sorties.
Thursday, April 11, 06:00 am (GMT+2)
AL-AQSA CHANNEL: Violent clashes were taking place at dawn today between the resistance and the occupation army in Madinat Al-Zahra, north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Thursday, April 11, 05:00 am (GMT+2)
US CENTRAL COMMAND: We destroyed 11 Houthi drones.
Thursday, April 11, 04:00 am (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: the Israeli army bombed – before dawn on Thursday – the Moaz bin Jabal Mosque in the new camp in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, which led to a fire.
Thursday, April 11, 03:00 am (GMT+2)
US STATE DEPARTMENT: In a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Blinken reiterated US support for Israel’s security. The secretary made it clear that the United States will stand by Israel against any threats from Iran and its ‘proxies.’
 
Ted Snider
In both Ukraine and Gaza, the Biden administration has adopted the dangerous doctrine of war management in which, while not stopping a war diplomatically, it attempts to contain it and prevent it from becoming a wider war into which the U.S. might get drawn.
The difficult to calibrate policy is being threatened in both theatres.
In the Middle East, two Israeli actions appeared to escalate the calibrated strikes between Israel and Iran to the threshold that Iran could absorb without seemingly feeling the necessity to respond.
One was an airstrike in southern Lebanon that killed Ali Ahmad Hassin, an important Hezbollah commander. The more significant and volatile one was the April 1 attack on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus that killed seven Iranian officers, including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the top Iranian Quds Force commander in Lebanon and Syria.
Zahedi is the most senior Iranian commander to be killed since war broke out on October 7. But what made this strike escalatory and dangerous is that it targeted an embassy compound under Iranian sovereignty. “When they attack our consulate,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech on April 10, “it is as if they have attacked our soil.” Khamenei called the decision to escalate to such an attack a “mistake” that “must be punished.”
A direct response by Iran against Israel could risk the nightmare scenario the United States has sought to avoid through its policy of managing wars. In that scenario, Iran retaliates in kind against Israel and Israel responds, drawing Iran and Hezbollah into the war in a manner that pulls in the Houthi as well as militias in Iraq and Syria. A Houthi source told Responsible Statecraft that “In case a full-scale war was to erupt between Hezbollah and Israel, Yemen and its leadership will stand with the party [Hezbollah] militarily, politically and economically” in a way that could even include “sending foot soldiers.” Such a force aligned against Israel could risk drawing the U.S. into the war.
In a speech on April 5, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called the attack on Iran’s Damascus embassy “a turning point” and said that it is “certain that the Iranian response to the [bombing] of the Iranian consulate is coming without a doubt.”
He said, perhaps clearly for the first time, that Hezbollah could intervene in the event of a full-scale Israel-Iran war. “Everyone must prepare themselves, arrange their matters and be careful,” he said, “when the Iranian side responds to the targeting of the Iranian consulate and to the Zionist enemy’s possible response to the Iranian response.”
Nasrallah said that an Iranian response is inevitable and seemed to caution against the size of the Israeli counter-response, saying, not only that “everyone must prepare themselves,” but reminding that Hezbollah has “not used the main weapons nor the main forces and we have not called in the reserves.”
Nasrallah may have been leveraging a fuller Hezbollah entrance into the war to caution Israel and the U.S. against an even more escalatory Israeli counter-response to the response Iran feels it must deliver. Iran may have gone even one step further, leveraging its entrance into the war in an attempt to stop the war altogether.
As Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute first reported, an Arab diplomatic source told Jadeh Iran that Iran will respond to the Israeli attack on its embassy with a direct attack on Israel unless the U.S. orchestrates a ceasefire in Gaza. According to reporting in Jadeh Iran, “Iran has vowed to respond to the assassination of Zahedi.” However, in an “exchange of messages between Tehran and Washington” whose aim is “to contain escalation,” an Iranian proposal “stipulated a ceasefire in Gaza as a price” for not striking Israel in retaliation.
Though a causal line cannot be drawn, it is interesting that, in an interview recorded on April 3, President Joe Biden said, “I think what [Netanyahu’s] doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” and then said, “So what I’m calling for is the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, a total access to all food and medicine going into the country.”
It is also interesting that the U.S. is participating in the latest round of ceasefire negotiations in Cairo. In an April 8 press conference, National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said that CIA Director Bill Burns was in Cairo for the talks. He said that the Biden administration “is doing everything possible to broker a deal that secures the release of all the hostages and leads to an immediate ceasefire.  And there’s simply no higher priority.”
CNN went further, reporting that Burns wasn’t just present or participating, but that he “presented a new proposal to try to bridge the gaps in ongoing negotiations to broker a deal to bring about a ceasefire.”
Hezbollah may be responding to the killing of a Hezbollah commander by leveraging the threat of its entering the war to prevent the war from entering an uncontrolled series of escalations. Iran may be responding to the airstrike on its embassy that killed a general by leveraging its entering the war to stop the war altogether. How big a factor Iran is, and how powerful its leverage, may help to determine what comes next, how big the Israeli counter response to Iran’s promised response is and even, perhaps, the prospects of a future ceasefire.

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