West Bank: Israeli dawn raid – dozens of Palestinians arrested

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will travel to Moscow on Tuesday to attend a meeting of gas-exporting countries and, on the sidelines of the summit, will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was stated by Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, as quoted by the Tasnim news agency. Pezeshkian, the ambassador went on to explain to RIA Novosti, will discuss “economic cooperation, energy security and geopolitical issues” with the Kremlin leader.

For weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaign had centred on ‘bitakhon’ – security – and almost exclusively on ‘bitakhon’: before or shortly after Tuesday’s election, the Prime Minister said, Hamas would launch an attack. Or it would be the Iranians carrying out air strikes: the air force had even been ordered to provoke them by flying over neighbouring Iraq.

The polls suggest that the moderate Gadi Eisenkot and his Coalition for Change are ahead of Netanyahu and his supporters. But only by a narrow margin. Stoking fears and playing up the danger was a calculated attempt to regain ground. The Israelis showed no sign of believing him. Until yesterday, in Hebron, when Hamas came to Bibi’s rescue with the most effective campaign rally of all: a terrorist attack.

According to a memo sent yesterday to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by Israel’s Channel 12, US intelligence warns that Iran has “significantly stepped up” its efforts to harm US diplomats and senior officials in the Middle East and other regions of the world, and that plans to assassinate them have reached “advanced stages”. According to US officials, this intelligence is one of the reasons why the State Department is reducing staff at several US embassies in the Middle East. Another factor heightening security tensions is the possibility that the US and Israel may resume military operations against Iran, possibly after the US mid-term elections. In a one-page unclassified memo, the US Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, warned Rubio that the information on Iran’s assassination plans needed to be shared with a wider range of US personnel, in addition to those currently authorised to receive it. The memo does not specify who the specific targets of the assassinations are, in which countries outside the Middle East such operations are planned, nor what the nature of the plans is. Clayton suggested lowering the classification level of the sensitive intelligence information as much as possible, so that Rubio could share it more widely with staff members potentially at risk. Earlier this week, the US State Department ordered the families of diplomats and non-essential staff to leave the US embassy in Riyadh and the US consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran, in Saudi Arabia. Yesterday, the State Department also ordered a reduction in the number of US diplomats and government employees at embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Qatar and Jordan, a senior US official said.

Iran will not allow US warships to return to the Persian Gulf. This was stated by Ali Abdollahi, head of the Iranian military command Khatam al-Anbiya, who claimed that the Iranian armed forces had rendered the US Navy “ineffective”. Quoted by Iranian state media, Abdollahi said that “the US President must be dreaming of seeing his own armed forces and army return to the Persian Gulf”.

QAYRUT (WEST BANK) – You’ll recognise it straight away. It shuttles back and forth between the olive groves that cover the hills south of Nablus and the clinics in the Palestinian villages. Its white bodywork, with a red crescent in the centre, bounces amongst the silvery-green branches of the olive trees. The orange flashing light, always on, can be seen from a distance. Even when plumes of smoke rise amongst the trees. Like today in Jalud. Like yesterday in Qaryut.

On board is a man who, this season, sleeps only a few hours a night. His name is Bashar Qaryouti. He is 45 years old. He has no children. His life is the ambulance. It was handed over to him five years ago by the Palestinian National Authority. Since then, he has looked after it as if it were a precious jewel. His beard is clean-shaven, his red uniform spotless. On the side of the vehicle, however, the dents are hard to miss. ‘Those are the settlers’ stones,’ comments Bashar, who is also an activist. “This year’s olive harvest is the worst so far. I used to transport people who were almost always injured by rubber bullets. Nowadays, there are more and more people wounded by gunfire. Like yesterday morning in Qaryut. A man. Shot in the back.”

At least 15 Palestinians were arrested by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during a dawn raid in the West Bank, where troops were deployed following yesterday’s attack in Hebron, which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers as well as the two attackers. This was reported by the Palestinian news agency Wafa, which explained that the raid was carried out by the IDF in the Nablus governorate. Local security sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli military units raided several residential neighbourhoods in the city of Nablus, searching homes and ransacking private property before arresting nine people. At the same time, Israeli forces raided the nearby village of Burin, south of Nablus, where a further six arrests were made following house searches in the area. In Hebron, meanwhile, the Wafa news agency reported that, during dawn operations in the areas of al-Jalda and Ein Deir Bahha, Israeli troops forced dozens of residents to leave their homes after surrounding both neighbourhoods.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet have announced “the launch of an anti-terrorism operation in the Hebron area”, in the south of the West Bank, in response to yesterday’s attack by two armed Palestinians on a checkpoint, which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers.

“The security forces have launched targeted, precise and thorough searches throughout the area to identify and dismantle terrorist infrastructure and weapons, whilst questioning suspects,” a statement said – “The operation is confined to the area where the terrorists were operating and is expected to continue for several days.”