CNN —
Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed more than 40,000 people since the Hamas-led offensive on Oct. 7, according to Palestinian officials, drawing international condemnation, but violence has escalated even further in the West Bank, just 60 miles away, where more than 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the war began.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday that they had launched their largest offensive in the occupied West Bank last year, launching raids and airstrikes on densely populated areas of Jenin and Tulkarem that have killed at least 15 people so far.
The attack comes amid escalating Israeli settler violence across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, with some settlers continuing to target Palestinian civilians and infrastructure.
Israel says its military operation in the West Bank is necessary to prevent further terrorist attacks on its territory. Palestinian leaders say violence can only lead to “tragic and dangerous consequences.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the situation “deeply disturbing” and urged Israel to immediately halt its military operations.
While Israel suggests the operation has just begun, here's what you need to know about the occupied territories and why the bloodshed there is intensifying.
What is the West Bank and who controls it?
The West Bank, located between Israel and Jordan, is home to 3.3 million Palestinians under Israeli military occupation and hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who began settling there about 57 years ago.
Israel began its occupation after the 1967 Six-Day War, seizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel claims that Jews have a biblical, ancestral right to the land.
Soon after, Israel began establishing Israeli communities in these areas, and most of the settlements in the West Bank remain today, in violation of international law.
In the 1990s, Israeli and Palestinian factions began peace negotiations with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state. These negotiations, known as the Oslo Accords, led to the creation of an interim Palestinian authority known as the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank city of Ramallah and with nominal control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Peace talks have been frozen for years, and the current Israeli government denies the idea of granting independence to the Palestinians.
Currently, the Palestinian Authority has administrative and security control over 18 percent of the West Bank, while 22 percent is under joint Israeli and Palestinian Authority control. Israel has sole control over the remaining 60 percent, which is where most Jewish settlements are located.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. In 2007, Hamas won elections and took control of the area.
The United Nations' highest court, the International Court of Justice, issued an unprecedented advisory opinion in July finding Israel's presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal and urged Israel to end its decades-long occupation.
More than 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank, all of whose presence is considered illegal under international law.
The settlements are spread across 146 settlements throughout the West Bank, except in East Jerusalem. While the majority of settlements have been built by government order, some unauthorized settlements, known as settlement outposts, have been built by ideologically driven Israeli civilians who hope that they will one day be sanctioned by the government.
Many of the settlements have encroached on Palestinian villages and, in some cases, on private Palestinian property. Some of the settlements have been built in close proximity to Palestinian neighborhoods, such as the one in Hebron, which is located in the center of a Palestinian town. There are 14 Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem that the international community considers illegal.
Settlement expansion has been a top priority for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, which has pushed through approvals of land seizures in the West Bank despite what human rights groups call war crimes.
In July, Israel approved its largest land seizure in the West Bank since the Oslo peace talks, according to Israeli anti-settlement monitor Peace Now.
Settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are seen as major obstacles to peace because they are located on land that Palestinians, as well as the international community, consider to be territory for a future Palestinian state.
Tensions have been building in the West Bank for many years, but on October 7 a new phase of instability began in the occupied territories.
That day, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Israel then launched a war in Gaza that has left 40,476 people dead, according to Palestinian officials.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 652 Palestinians, including 150 children, have been killed and more than 5,400 injured in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the war.
The violence has been particularly severe among children, with an August report from American Refugees for Near East Asia (ANERA) stating that the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bullets in the West Bank had nearly tripled in one year.
Meanwhile, settler attacks have continued for months without any serious consequences or accountability.
In February, hundreds of settlers carried out the largest attack on Palestinians in years in the town of Huwara and surrounding areas after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers living nearby. In the aftermath of the violence, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler who opposes Palestinian sovereignty, said, “Huwara must disappear.”
Earlier this month, more than 70 armed settlers entered the town of Zit, firing bullets and tear gas at Palestinian residents and setting fire to several homes, cars and other property, leaving one person dead. The attack drew condemnation from Israeli government officials, but far-right members of Netanyahu's government and settlement leaders have brushed off blame for the settlers.
In total, there have been at least 1,270 documented attacks by settlers against Palestinians since October 7, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Of those attacks, OCHA reported, more than 120 “resulted in the deaths or injuries of Palestinians.”
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel's largest military and diplomatic backer, has imposed a series of sanctions this year on Israeli settlers accused of involvement in violence in the West Bank, freezing their financial assets and banning them from entering the United States.
“The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel's own security,” the State Department said in a statement last month.
Israel launched a major counterterrorism operation on Wednesday in the Jenin and Tulkarem regions, where officials said “more than 150 gunfire and explosive attacks” occurred last year.
Israel alleges the rise of Palestinian militant groups in the northern West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, is the result of an Iranian operation to distribute weapons in the region.
Local militias have also thrived in the northern West Bank, made up mainly of disillusioned young people who grew up under Israeli occupation and who harbor deep resentment towards the unpopular Palestinian Authority, which they see as supporting Israel and unable to protect them from it.
The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday condemned Israel's “violations and crimes,” particularly its “ongoing genocidal war in the Gaza Strip and its attacks on the northern West Bank.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group condemned the Israeli military's “comprehensive aggression,” calling it an “open and undeclared war.”
The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday they had killed five fighters, including Muhammad Jabar, a commander from the Al-Quds Brigades, the PIJ's military wing.
