The Israeli army has launched a raid on Ramallah and el-Bireh in the occupied West Bank, with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reporting that at least 24 Palestinians have been wounded in the attacks.
The wounded included a 12-year-old child, shot in the back near a vegetable market, the Wafa news agency, citing medical teams, reported on Tuesday.
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Witnesses on the ground said Israeli forces stormed a currency exchange shop in an area between Ramallah and el-Bireh, detaining at least three Palestinians while Israeli snipers positioned themselves on rooftops as troops stormed the central vegetable market area.
A 71-year-old man and four other people were also wounded in the head, face, abdomen and neck by rubber-coated steel bullets.
Five others, including two pregnant women, suffered from tear gas inhalation during the raid.
A rescue team was prevented from reaching the wounded in the besieged areas, they said.
Xavier Abu Eid, former communication director for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said the raid lasted a few hours in an area close to three schools and a market.
“This is part of the daily life of Palestinians,” Abu Eid told Al Jazeera from Ramallah, noting that Israel is conducting a show of force to remind residents “who is actually ruling here”.
Adel Abdel Ghafar, senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said Israel’s latest military operation in Ramallah showed its war is not just with Hamas or Gaza but with “all the Palestinian people”.
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“We’ve seen increasing incursions of the Israeli military into the West Bank. We’ve seen the demolition of homes. We’ve seen demolition of properties,” he told Al Jazeera.
“This is all part and parcel of the collective punishment of the Palestinian people in the West Bank,” he said, adding that part of the goal is to “financially strangle” people in the territory.
He added that Israel was able to carry out its operations “with impunity across the West Bank” because the Palestinian Authority (PA) is unable to respond effectively.
The West Bank has seen a surge in Israeli military and settler violence since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes.
Ramallah recorded the highest number of attacks, 585, followed by 479 in Nablus in the northern West Bank.
At least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers across the region since October 2023, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Paris-based political journalist Faten Elwan said the raid in Ramallah appeared to be more of a show of force over the occupied West Bank rather than a targeted military operation.
“Israel is sending a clear message that Oslo is dead, that the Palestinian Authority is dead and that there is no power on the ground but the Israeli forces and the settlers that now act as a shadow government for the vision of the Israeli army,” she told Al Jazeera.
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