Israeli Press
Katz orders preparations to occupy another refugee camp, and the army stalls
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, announced that he had instructed the army to widen its offensive operations in the occupied West Bank and to prepare to occupy another refugee camp. The army is not advancing the plan, the Israeli news site Ynet reported on Monday in a story by its military correspondent Elisha Ben Kimon.
The model Katz invoked is the one applied to Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, where months of operations emptied the camps of their residents and reshaped the streets with bulldozers.
Officers gave Ben Kimon a practical reason for the delay rather than a political one. Taking a camp demands manpower, engineering equipment and general-staff attention, and the general staff is occupied with Iran, southern Lebanon and Gaza. Security officials also argued that the operations already running are, in their assessment, sufficient.
What runs instead is friction. A special unit has been patrolling Nablus weekly for weeks, and photographs published on Monday show its soldiers walking the city's central market with weapons drawn, between the vegetable stalls.
Israeli forces also spent two days in Qalandiya refugee camp demolishing structures the army classifies as unlicensed.
The gap the report describes is a gap in method, not in intention. The minister's order stands on the record; the camp it names has not been chosen; and the residents of every camp in the northern West Bank read the announcement knowing what the last one meant.
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