Five days after Hamas’ brutal surprise attack on Israel prompted relentless retaliatory air strikes against the Gaza Strip, the unrest has spread and is spiraling out of control in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that two men were killed by Israeli settlers while attending a funeral for several Palestinians shot a day earlier by Israeli forces and settlers.
Video of the incident shows a car of Israeli settlers swerving into the path of the funeral possession before stopping and spraying the mourners with bullets.
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The father and son were reportedly gunned down near the town of Qusra, the same place where West Bank authorities said four Palestinians had been killed by rampaging settlers and Israeli forces on Wednesday.
The father and son are among at least 29 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since Saturday, according to Reuters.
As the barbarity of Hamas’ massacres in multiple Israeli communities comes to light—with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharing a photo of a child’s bed covered in blood—the National Security Ministry has revealed a huge surge in citizens seeking firearms. Nearly 8,000 requests for licenses have been received since Saturday, the ministry said. The Israeli military has already said it would distribute firearms to those licensed to “bolster” defense around the country.
“Anyone who challenges us in Judea and Samaria will be met with huge force,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a military spokesman, said, using the biblical name for the West Bank. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry warned earlier this week that Israeli settlers receiving more arms would likely “blow things up in the West Bank.”
With Hamas calling on Palestinians in the West Bank to take part in the fight against Israel, a possible Israeli ground invasion of Gaza could be the tipping point into absolute chaos.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said Thursday that troops “are preparing for a ground maneuver if decided” but that authorities had not yet made that call, the Associated Press reported.
Israeli authorities are also preparing for a second front possibly opening up against Iran-backed Hezbollah on the northern border. After repeated clashes against Hezbollah militants along the border with Lebanon in recent days, the Israeli military on Thursday reportedly carried out simultaneous air strikes on airports in Damascus and Aleppo, presumably targeting airstrips receiving alleged Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Palestinians living in Gaza face the grim reality of a near-total power outage, relentless air strikes, and a blockade on deliveries of food, water, and fuel.
“There is no safe place at all in the Gaza Strip,” a community activist told Insider. “We are just waiting to die.”
In addition to carrying out its most intense bombing campaign in decades and vowing to wipe Hamas “off the face of the Earth,” Israel has said no humanitarian exceptions will be made to its blockade of the strip until all Israeli hostages are freed by Hamas.
The identities of at least 97 people taken hostage by Hamas gunmen on Saturday have been confirmed, Israeli authorities said Thursday, though there are also thought to be more in captivity. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, admitted in an interview with CNN that the Israeli military had never dealt with any hostage situation of this magnitude before.
Calling it an “extremely sensitive and complex topic,” he said the captives were likely being held underground. “Reason dictates that they are underground. Reason also dictates that Hamas, since they planned to launch this attack and they planned to take these people hostage, reason dictates that they planned in advance locations to hide these hostages and keep them safe from Israeli intelligence, and efforts to get them out,” he said.
