Israeli Forces Invade West Bank Using Genocidal Playbook From Gaza | Palestine Policy Roundup 01.27.25
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Sen. Bernie Sanders on the ceasefire: “Finally, as Americans, we must grapple with our role in this dark chapter. The United States allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage. This blanket military support took place in clear violation of U.S. and international law. This must not happen again.”
Rep. Summer Lee: “The path to a just and lasting peace is clear: an end to the occupation, the blockade of Gaza, and the apartheid policies that deny Palestinians their basic rights. We must fully support Palestinian self-determination and liberation, as justice for Palestinians is inseparable from lasting peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib in response to Israel’s ceasefire violations in Gaza: “The Israeli apartheid regime is continuing to kill Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians have been so dehumanized that it hasn’t even made headlines. The ethnic cleansing has not ended. They will never stop until there’s an arms embargo.”
Rep. Lateefah Simon: “I am deeply concerned about the Israeli military's actions in Jenin in the West Bank. 10 people have already been killed & more injured. Communities in Gaza have already been torn apart, we cannot have the violence and death tear apart the West Bank too.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
⚖️ SENATE SET TO VOTE ON CLOTURE FOR ICC SANCTIONS BILL THIS WEEK
Last week, the Senate invoked cloture (Congressional Record, S307) on H.R.23, a partisan bill to reimpose Trump-era sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for seeking to hold Israeli leaders accountable for their actions against Palestinians in Gaza, which leading human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded amount to the crimes of genocide and extermination.
H.R.23 would impose mandatory sanctions on any foreign persons, along with all of their immediate family members, who assist or support in any way the ICC investigating, arresting, detaining, or prosecuting officials of the US, NATO-member countries, or major non-NATO allies (a designation which includes Israel). These sanctions include denying and revoking visas and blocking property transactions. The bill would also rescind any funds already obligated to the ICC and block future appropriations to support its work.
Instead of working to hold alleged war criminals accountable, H.R.23 instead proposes to sanction those trying to hold accountable alleged war criminals and to enable alleged war criminals to get away scot free. This bill undermines the principle of international justice for alleged perpetrators of the most heinous crimes under international law.
💡 POLICY ASK: IMEU Policy Project strongly urges Senators to speak out against this bill and vote no when it comes to the floor.
📖 LEARN MORE: Check out the IMEU Policy Project’s policy memo on this bill and how it fits into the extremist MAGA agenda being pushed by Congressional Republicans.
❌ PRESIDENT TRUMP PROPOSES ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS FROM GAZA
President Donald Trump proposed that Palestinians in Gaza should be forcibly displaced from the occupied territory and that Egypt and Jordan should take them on as refugees. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safidi firmly rejected the idea of forcible displacement of Palestinians. Forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would be a war crime and would also be a violation of the ceasefire agreement that has temporarily stopped Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Ahmed Derly, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, reacted to Trump’s proposal in Middle East Eye: "For 15 months, I lived conditions beyond imagination. I lost my best friends, my home, and my life's work, and still I remained steadfast on my land in the north. This is not a choice; Palestinians will not leave their land. It is a part of our identity…We are a people who deserve respect. It is stunning that, after all the suffering we have endured, the president of a major country could simply propose removing us from our land."
This is far from the first suggestion that Palestinians should be forcibly displaced from Gaza, and these comments should be taken seriously. In the first days of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence recommended that all of Gaza’s population be forcibly transferred to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. As Israeli forces instituted a blockade on northern Gaza, many feared that it was implementing the so-called General’s Plan, which would have ethnically cleansed Palestinians from that part of the occupied territory.
🏦 PRESIDENT TRUMP RESCINDS SANCTIONS ON ISRAELI SETTLERS ON FIRST DAY IN OFFICE
In one of the first acts of his second term, President Donald Trump rescinded sanctions placed on Israeli settlers and settlement-supporting organizations by the Biden administration. These sanctions targeted Israeli settlers and organizations responsible for perpetrating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The lifting of these sanctions is likely to fan the flames of continued Israeli violence against Palestinians and Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians from their land. It is an outrage that one of Trump’s first actions as president was to lift sanctions against Israeli settlers who have engaged in deadly violence against Palestinians.
While the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration were encouraging, they did not go far enough. These measures failed to address the centrality of Israeli forces–along with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in particular–in rising settler violence and the continued theft of Palestinian land.
According to a report by Amnesty International, members of Israeli forces either refused to intervene in attacks against Palestinains by settlers or actively joined attacks in incidents across the West Bank in April 2024. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are key architects of Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and have repeatedly supported violence against Palestinians committed by settlers.
These sanctions also largely failed to stop settler violence. There were more than 1,400 settler attacks on Palestinians according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Israel also carried out its largest theft of Palestinian land since the signing of the Oslo Accords, stealing nearly 5 square miles of Palestinian land, in June. By July, Israel had stolen more than 23 square miles of Palestinian land in 2024.
The rescission of these sanctions raises concerns about the possibility that the Trump administration would support Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank. Adding to the concern, last week Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for US ambassador to the UN, replied affirmatively when she was asked if she shared the views of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich on Israel’s claims to the West Bank. Stefanik also refused to say whether she supported the self-determination of Palestinians.
IN THE NEWS
🖥️ MICROSOFT DEEPENED TIES WITH ISRAELI FORCES AS THEY COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN GAZA
Leaked documents analyzed by Drop Site News, The Guardian, and Israeli news site Local Call reveal that Microsoft has played an instrumental role in optimizing Israel’s genocide in Gaza by providing cloud-based services and artificial intelligence tools to Israeli forces. The investigations revealed that Israeli forces significantly increased their reliance on services from Microsoft and other firms, and that the use of this technology may have also been used in intelligence and combat operations in Gaza.
Local Call reports that Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure was used by units that are “managing large databases of potential targets for lethal airstrikes… responsible for the development of operational and combat support systems” and more. It also reports that Israel’s system of population surveillance in the West Bank is also maintained by Azure.
The documents also revealed how Microsoft personnel are directly involved with the Israeli units that purchase these services both remotely and on Israeli military bases. An Israeli intelligence officer who revealed that Microsoft was working with Israeli forces to develop a surveillance system before October 7 described the developers as “people who are already working with the unit”-- as if they were soldiers. Microsoft earned more than $10 million from over 19,000 hours of support and consultancy services provided to Israeli forces.
This is just the latest piece of evidence of tech’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Last year, reports revealed that Israel was using artificial intelligence to identify targets that Israeli forces would kill using “dumb bombs” that would flatten homes and kill scores of Palestinians. These reports demonstrate that complicity with the genocide in Gaza does not end with the provision of weapons to Israel but extends to big tech as well.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🚨 ISRAELI FORCES STEP UP VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS IN THE WEST BANK WITH INVASION OF JENIN
Israeli forces invaded Jenin in the occupied West Bank last week after severely restricting the movement of Palestinians throughout the occupied territory. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called this invasion an application of the “lessons” learned from the Israeli assault on Gaza, meaning that Israeli forces are adopting military tactics learned during the genocide there. This is the second time that they have invaded Jenin in less than 6 months, with the first invasion coming as part of a wider Israeli offensive across the northern part of the West Bank in August 2024. At least 12 Palestinians have been killed during this invasion so far, and more than 2,000 families have been displaced–as many as 20,000 people–as Israeli forces reportedly bulldozed the streets of the city. Israeli forces are reportedly blocking four main entrances into the city.
Israeli forces also laid siege to a refugee camp and hospital in the city. Ambulances are being prevented from transporting patients to the besieged hospital, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, and 600 staff and patients are isolated in the hospital with dwindling medical supplies, food, and water.
Israeli forces also launched assaults on Palestinian towns and villages elsewhere in the occupied territory, including in Deir Sammit, where they raided the homes of prisoners set to be released as part of the ceasefire in Gaza.
This is part of a larger attack on the occupied West Bank: Israeli forces set up nearly 900 checkpoints throughout the occupied territory. A Palestinian woman died of a heart attack as she was being transported to the hospital after Israeli forces denied the ambulance passage through a checkpoint near Hebron. Palestinian journalists have reported that tear gas was used on Palestinians waiting at a Jericho checkpoint, and that Palestinians have been unable to leave the city.
🍎 ISRAEL’S BAN ON UNRWA SET TO TAKE EFFECT IN MASSIVE THREAT TO AID DISTRIBUTION
Israeli laws that would effectively ban UNRWA from operating in Israel are set to take effect on January 28 in a massive threat to aid distribution efforts that are a key part of the ceasefire in Gaza. The laws were passed in late 2024 by the Israeli Knesset, and would compel UNRWA to cease its operations and prevent Israeli authorities, including COGAT and Israeli forces in Gaza, from cooperating with the agency.
Even before the ban has started, the cutting of US funding to the agency has left it unable to meet the level of aid necessary across the occupied territories. UNRWA is unable to replace staff members, unable to repair vehicles and equipment, and classroom sizes are increasing.
This ban also poses a serious risk to the ceasefire in Gaza and is a part of a pattern of Israeli attacks on the agency there. Over the course of the genocide in Gaza, more than 260 agency staff have been killed and 201 installations have been damaged. 85% of schools operated by UNRWA in Gaza have been hit or damaged, and thousands of Palestinian children there have been denied an education for well over a year.
A research brief published by the Peace Research Institute Oslo also warns that this move threatens the “operational backbone” of aid distribution in Gaza, “making aid distribution extremely difficult also for other humanitarian agencies.” There will be no logistical support for the aid that is supposed to enter Gaza under the ceasefire deal agreed to earlier this month. UNRWA is the agency most capable of coordinating this increase in aid, and other organizations and agencies likely will not be able to replicate UNRWA’s scale and speed required for the massive increase in aid.
🛑 PALESTINIANS KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES IN GAZA DESPITE ONGOING CEASEFIRE
Israeli forces have killed Palestinians in Gaza in violation of the ceasefire agreement. At least four Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces in Gaza last week. 13 year old Zakariya Barbakh was shot and killed by Israeli forces while looking for firewood near Rafah, and another Palestinian man who attempted to rescue his body was also shot. Two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire near Rafah. Palestinians have reported that while Israeli forces have pulled back to buffer zones along the boundaries of the occupied territory, it is still unclear what areas they are not safe to approach.
As Palestinians who were displaced by Israeli forces return to their homes–most of which were damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces–they are finding more bodies under the rubble. 162 Palestinians were found under the rubble on Sunday alone, adding to the more than 47,000 Palestinians who have been killed directly by Israel’s assault on Gaza. More than 10,000 Palestinians were estimated to be buried under the rubble in 2024, and countless more Palestinians who were killed have not been counted due to Israel’s deliberate destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza.
Photo: Anas-Mohammed, via Shutterstock (Stock Photo ID: 2454907465).