Israel Eases Shooting Orders for Soldiers in West Bank

Asharq Al-Awsat

11-02-2025

The Israeli Army has expanded its shooting orders for its soldiers in the occupied West Bank, leading to the recent high death toll of unarmed Palestinians, Israeli media said on Monday.
The Haaretz newspaper said the army has decided to implement the open-fire mechanism it used in the Gaza Strip, whether suspected or not, in the West Bank.
The change in the guidelines, according to the report, was initiated by the head of the Central Command, Avi Bluth, and the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Yaki Dolf.
Army sources told the newspaper Bluth ordered that the Israeli forces may shoot to kill anyone 'messing with the ground' and that there is no need to apply the procedure for arresting a suspect in these cases.
Meanwhile, Dolf ordered that forces may fire live rounds at any vehicle coming toward a checkpoint from a combat zone to force the driver to stop before reaching it, according to the same source.
The Israeli army claimed the order's objective is to prevent Palestinians in the West Bank from planting explosive devices on roads where the Israeli army operate, but combat sources say that the expanded order has made soldiers on the ground 'trigger-happy.'
Since January 21, Israeli forces have expanded their ongoing military campaign in the West Bank to include the camps of Nur Shams and Al-Fara'a, following similar attacks that killed dozens in Jenin and Tulkarm.
They say that the expanded open-fire orders by the Central Command have resulted in several serious incidents. On Sunday, soldiers shot to death a man and woman, who was eight months pregnant, when they drove toward an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarm.
The army's preliminary investigation found that the man was shot and killed inside the car without trying to breach the checkpoint or threaten the soldiers, reported Haaretz.
His pregnant wife, Sundus Shalabi, 23, was able to get out of the car and was shot three times in the chest.
According to the investigation, the woman 'looked suspiciously at the ground.' She was unarmed, and no weapons were found near her that might have served as evidence she was trying to place an explosive device.
Haaretz said commanders and soldiers on the ground say that the Central Command decided to copy operating methods used in Gaza in the West Bank.
And while Israel has been concentrating its operations across the northern West Bank, killing, destroying and displacing Palestinians, the army is conducting large-scale arrest campaigns in other areas of the West Bank.
Prisoners' affairs groups said on Monday the army detained 580 Palestinians in the West Bank in January.
Most of the detainees were taken into custody from the northern city of Jenin and its refugee camp, where Israel has launched a deadly onslaught since Jan. 21, the Commission of Detainees' Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
They said 17 women and 60 children were among the detainees.
At least 14,500 arrests have been reported in the West Bank since the eruption of the Gaza war in 2023 and until the ceasefire was reached on January 19, 2025, said the prisoners' affairs groups.
This figure excludes the number of arrests in Gaza that are estimated in thousands.
Meanwhile, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees UNRWA warned on Monday that the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern part of the West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace.
Several refugee camps are nearly empty after Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall on January 21, making it the longest operation in the West Bank since the second intifada.
The operation started in Jenin camp and then expanded to Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Al-Fara'a camps, displacing 40,000 Palestine refugees, it said.
UNRWA said thousands of families have been forcibly displaced since Israel began carrying out large-scale operations in the West Bank in mid-2023.
'Repeated and destructive operations have rendered the northern refugee camps uninhabitable, trapping residents in cyclical displacement,' the agency stressed.