Key Points
- Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has condemned the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank.
- The Israel Defence Forces are struggling to control violence in the West Bank.
- Experts say violence is not new but tensions have escalated since 7 October.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since Israel started bombarding the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations estimates that 115 Palestinians, including 33 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 7 October and at least 1,000 are displaced.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Israel to "rein in" violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority but considered occupied by Israel under international law.
Wong said the international community was becoming "increasingly distressed" by the soaring death toll in Gaza which, with the West Bank makes up the Palestinian territories, .
"We share the concerns about the evidence of violence in the West Bank and the deaths of Palestinians at the hands of extremists," she told SBS News on Wednesday.
"We do believe that Israel needs to ensure they rein such violence in. It is not conducive to trying to contain the conflict, which is already difficult enough."
Where is the West Bank?
The West Bank is an enclave located to the east of Jerusalem. Israel started to build settlements in the area following the Six-Day War in 1967.
In 1993 the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel signed the Oslo Accords - which were heralded as the start of peace talks - dividing the West Bank into three areas - A, B and C - with differing rights for people in each of these.
A map showing Gaza, Israel and the West Bank. Credit: SBS News
Area B is under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control, and area C - 60 per cent of the territory - is fully under Israeli control, and is where the Israeli settlements are located.
The World Bank, in a 2014 report, said: "Less than 1 percent of Area C, which is already built up, is designated by the Israeli authorities for Palestinian use; the remainder is heavily restricted or off-limits to Palestinians."
What is happening in the West Bank?
Palestinians have reported a rise in vigilante violence by settlers, with a Palestinian shot by a settler while tending to his olive garden earlier this week.
Dr Andrew Thomas, lecturer in Middle East Studies at Deakin University, said the West Bank was experiencing "the deadliest week since it started recording deaths in 2005".
He said the arming of civilians in the West Bank contributed to the violence.
Israel's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir changed laws around who could carry a firearm in April and after 7 October his ministry handed out thousands of rifles.
Dr Eyal Mayroz is a senior lecturer in peace and conflict studies at the University of Sydney.
He said the Israel Defence Forces want to "minimise friction and avoid escalation" but could only partially control extremists in the West Bank.
"They're likely to at least try to contain the violence because not doing anything serious … would mean giving free licence to or signalling to other radical Jewish elements in the West Bank that they can do the same," Mayroz said.
Palestinians have reported a rise in vigilante violence against them by settlers in the West Bank. Source: AFP, Getty / Wahaj Bani Moufleh/Middle East Images
One worry for Israel in the West Bank is "lone wolf" attacks among Palestinians who have disparate local loyalties but an overall contempt for Israeli occupation, analysts say.
Lior Akerman, a former officer in Israel's internal security service the Shin Bet, said Hamas had been trying to "do all it can to activate terrorists in the West Bank" for years.
Akerman acknowledged, however, that security measures had been tightened since the Gaza bombardment began, saying that the most recent round of arrests might not have happened under normal circumstances.
"Last night the army ... took around 100 terrorists in the West Bank. In regular days ... the Shin Bet would arrest only those they knew were preparing terror attacks," he said.
Is this violence in the West Bank new?
Violence in the West Bank predates the 7 October attacks, but tensions have particularly escalated in recent years.
According to Thomas, this has been exacerbated by the rhetoric of Israeli public figures pushing settlement and the passing of the .
Section 7 of the law establishes "Jewish settlement as a national value" and mandates the state "will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development".
Thomas noted that this solidifies Israeli settlement on the West Bank and could encourage violence between Palestinians and settlers.
"The encouragement of settlement and the justification of settlements has unequivocally resulted in more clashes between Palestinians and Israeli governments," he said.
"It has enabled settler violence because the settlers say, well the government's got our back because of this law."
A Palestinian confronts Israeli military vehicles with Palestinian and Syrian flags to try to stop them from crossing into the centre of the Jenin refugee camp. Credit: Nasser Ishtayeh/Sipa USA
Mayroz said intrusion by the Israeli forces had "upscaled" in the past year, highlighting the attack on the Jenin refugee camp which killed ten Palestinians and injured 100.
However, both experts agreed that Israeli forces have not been more heavy-handed in recent weeks than in the past.
- With additional reporting from Reuters.
