Israeli Forces Raid Jenin As Fears Mount of Accelerated West Bank Annexation Plan Under Trump

Troops, bulldozers, drones, helicopters, and warplanes attacked Jenin and neighboring towns for two days

A girl crosses a destroyed street near Israeli army vehicles during a military raid in the Jenin camp, in the occupied West Bank, on November 19, 2024. (Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)

The Israeli military conducted a large-scale raid on the West Bank city of Jenin and neighboring towns this week, killing at least eight Palestinians and arresting an unknown number of residents. Troops, bulldozers, drones, helicopters, and warplanes attacked the area for two days before withdrawing on Wednesday evening. 

Israeli forces have not released the bodies of two of those killed in the village of Kufr Dan, west of Jenin city, according to Kamal Abu al-Rab, the head of Jenin governorate. The Israeli military also launched incursions on Tulkarem and Qalqilya on Wednesday evening, injuring at least two Palestinians with live ammunition.

This week’s raids on Jenin and the surrounding areas are only the latest wave of assaults on cities and towns in the occupied West Bank. Since Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza began in October 2023, its military forces have conducted large and small-scale incursions across the territory, escalating in frequency and severity. In August, Israel launched “Operation Summer Camps,” a large-scale military invasion of the West Bank, with the northern cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, and Tubas coming under fierce attack. Now, Palestinians fear that Israel intends to further accelerate its campaign of annexation and ethnic cleansing in the coming months under the incoming Trump administration, in parallel with its genocidal assault on Gaza. 

Videos shared with Drop Site News by journalists and residents in Jenin on Wednesday showed massive damage to civilian infrastructure, with homes demolished or set alight, roads torn up and destroyed. The footage also showed explosions going off across the city and Apache helicopters circling overhead. 

Military bulldozers destroyed several power lines on Wednesday, leading to a complete power outage across Jenin. The Israeli military also announced that it conducted airstrikes on the city, killing at least two Palestinians, according to local residents. Palestinian resistance fighters responded to the invasion by shooting at Israeli troops and detonating home-made IEDs.

"The Israeli military launched this invasion at midnight on Monday. There were at least six bulldozers in Jenin,” Rocky Rakan, a resident of Jenin, told Drop Site News, adding that the military operation targeted vital infrastructure in the camp. "The destruction by the bulldozers is even worse than that during the ten day siege,” he said, referring to a large-scale Israeli military operation in the area several months ago. "They have destroyed primary electricity sources in the city and are still bulldozing the streets for the second day now.”

In the Jenin refugee camp, soldiers stormed homes, positioning snipers inside them and using them as military bases, according to local journalists on the ground. Palestinian residents, including women, were used as human shields by the Israeli army during the invasion of the camp, according to a statement from the governor of Jenin on Wednesday evening. 

Residents were forced to remain inside their homes during the military assault and classes at all public and private schools were suspended for two days. A number of residents were arrested and subjected to various forms of ill-treatment, eyewitnesses said. Some residents were taken to Israeli detention centers including Jalameh prison, while others were held at gunpoint in the streets for extended periods before being released.

Mahmoud El-Saadi, the head of the emergency unit for the Red Crescent in Jenin, told Drop Site that Israeli troops have also targeted emergency workers. “The Israeli military banned medics from reaching two men in the eastern area, and then the army took the medics and used them as human shields at gunpoint,” El-Saadi said. “They used some to invade homes forcing them to open doors and turn on their lights.” 

Israeli troops have also detained and abused medics, El Saadi said. “Soldiers beat medics and treated them with humiliation and physical abuse. In these two days they have enacted all sorts of torture, and forced medics to grab weapons from the ground,” he said. “They forced medics to sit on the cold floor for extended periods, usually in strenuous positions while facing a wall. They are only released after negotiations with the Israeli commander of the district through the Red Cross.”

Footage shared online also shows Israeli military vehicles blocking ambulances and obstructing medical assistance during the raids. “There seems to be a clear policy to attack medics and ambulances to curb their capacity at providing services,” El-Saadi said. “During every invasion there is a form of attack [against medics],” he added. “Even moving from one area to the next is difficult. The streets are so destroyed that you’d think an earthquake hit. If it rains then it's going to flood.” 

“The levels of abuse and humiliation for medical staff is increasing, it’s common practice to humiliate them, use them as human shields, beat them and detain them while trying to provide emergency aid to people.” 

The escalating Israeli military campaigns in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, combined with increasing settler violence have left nearly 800 Palestinians dead, including over 160 children, according to the health ministry.

Israel’s intensified campaign in the West Bank this week comes in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections. The Biden administration, which has fully armed, supported and backed Israel in its most violent assault on Palestinians since its founding in 1948, has helped lay the groundwork for Israel’s full annexation of the West Bank under the incoming Trump administration. 

Trump has maintained close ties to several Zionist and pro-Israel figures, tapping a number to serve in his administration. The single biggest financier of Trump’s 2024 election campaign was Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-American billionaire who gave $100 million to the cause. Adelson, whose late husband was casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has long advocated annexation of the West Bank.

In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised Donald Trump’s victory, saying his incoming administration presents an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Biblical terms Zionists use to refer to the West Bank. 

In one of his first decisions as president-elect, Trump nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. “Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in his announcement of the pick, posted to Truth Social.

A leading Christian Zionist, Huckabee first visited Israel in 1973 and has been leading Christian pilgrimages there in the decades since. “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” he said during his failed run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, adding that the very concept of Palestinian identity is “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

Huckabee has also openly advocated for the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. In an appearance on CNN in 2017, he claimed “there is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.” In 2019 Huckabee called on Trump to endorse an Israeli annexation of the West Bank prior to the announcement of the Abraham Accords, which saw a host of Arab states normalize relations with Israel.

Following Huckabee’s appointment, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right Israeli national security minister,  posted on X "Mike Huckabee" with a heart between the Israeli and American flags. Smotrich also praised Huckabee’s appointment, saying that with him, Israel would reinforce its hold over the occupied territories.

In an interview on Israeli radio following his appointment, Huckabee was asked whether Israel’s annexation of the West Bank was a possibility under a second Trump administration. “Well of course,” he said. “I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president, but he has already demonstrated in his first term that there’s never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel—from the moving of the embassy, recognition of the Golan Heights, and Jerusalem as the capital, no one has done more than president Trump and I fully expect that will continue.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s selection for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, is also a staunch supporter of Israel who criticized the Biden administration for issuing sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations. In an August 2024 letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Rubio also referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria and called Jerusalem the capital of Israel. “Israelis rightfully living in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are,” he wrote.

Other potential appointees who could have a hand in policies affecting Palestine include New York Representative Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik led the grilling of Ivy League university presidents at congressional hearings over allegations of antisemitism on campus during pro-Palestine protests. In May, she visited Israel and delivered an address to the Knesset. “Each and every one of these visits to Israel underscores to me the fundamental facts that Israel is a miracle and that Israel is foundational to the United States,” she said later. 

Trump also tapped his longtime friend and golfing partner, Steven Witkoff, as a special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff, who has no foreign policy experience, is a pro-Israel donor to Trump’s campaign and attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July. In a recent interview, he said that the speech“felt spiritual” and criticized Democrats for not showing their full support.