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Former Israeli Chief of Staff Warns of Escalating Tensions in West Bank

Palestinians walk through an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank town of Bethlehem and Jerusalem on June 2, 2017. (AFP)
Palestinians walk through an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank town of Bethlehem and Jerusalem on June 2, 2017. (AFP)
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Former Israeli Chief of Staff Warns of Escalating Tensions in West Bank

Palestinians walk through an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank town of Bethlehem and Jerusalem on June 2, 2017. (AFP)
Palestinians walk through an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank town of Bethlehem and Jerusalem on June 2, 2017. (AFP)

The US administration has summoned in recent a number of important figures in the Middle East, including Israelis and Palestinians, for talks on the consequences of Washington’s publishing of its peace plan, known as the “deal of the century.”

Informed sources confirmed that one of these figures was former Israeli chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.

He participated in a three-hour meeting with US envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt. The talks were attended by 10 experts in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, most of whom were involved in the peace process during the terms of former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

He warned the White House about a danger of an escalation in the West Bank in the near future and recommended that the Trump government take this into account in light of its intention to present its peace plan in the coming weeks.

He claimed that the situation is sensitive and volatile for many reasons, including cuts in US aid to the Palestinian security services, the economic crisis due to cuts in US aid to the Palestinian Authority, and the PA decision to refuse the tax money which Israel collects on its behalf. The decision was sparked by Tel Aviv’s announcement that it will withhold part of the money since it is being transferred to detainees and martyrs’ families.

According to Channel 13, five sources confirmed that Eisenkot indicated the situation in the West Bank could explode before, during, or after the US peace plan.

“You have to take this into consideration. Once this demon comes out of the bottle, it will take five years to get it back in,” he warned.

He added that whether the US peace plan is put into place or not, steps should be taken to stabilize the situation on the ground for the best of both sides.

He recommended to Greenblatt to re-allocate the funding to the Palestinian security forces, take steps to improve the economic situation, the infrastructure and education sector.

Sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that Greenblatt responded that the Trump government is aware of the risks but intends to publish the peace plan in the coming weeks.

They added that the US peace plan includes an item that supports the establishment of Israeli sovereignty over all settlements on the West Bank, despite their knowledge of the Palestinian position regarding that.

US officials have said that the peace plan will be revealed after the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in June.

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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, an international human rights group said Monday.
The Oct. 25 airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since the Israel-Hezbollah war began 13 months ago.
Eleven other journalists have been killed and eight wounded since then, Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced since Israeli ground troops invaded while Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel - and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the Oct. 25 attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.
The group said the US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military´s repeated "unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the report.
The Biden administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented US officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The journalists killed in the airstrike in the southeastern town of Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.
Human Rights Watch said a munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor.
"Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel," said Richard Weir, the senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Weir added that "the Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media."
Human Rights Watch said that it found remnants at the site and reviewed photographs of pieces collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.

The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters, the group said.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France´s international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar´s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border.