By Issam Ahmed

 

Tulkarem, OCCUPIED WEST BANK, 18 Sept. - (ANA) - Israeli forces have arrested more than 1,000 Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem in recent days, a campaign that rights advocates and local officials describe as collective punishment after an improvised explosive device wounded two Israeli soldiers last week.

 

The arrests followed an Israeli military statement reporting minor injuries to two soldiers when an explosive device detonated near a military vehicle on Tulkarem’s outskirts on Thursday.

 

Witnesses and video footage showed long queues of men being marched through the streets in the days that followed. 

 

Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, said her organisation documented about 1,000 arrests over several days, describing the scenes as “strongly resembling what occurred in the Gaza Strip following the ground invasion, regardless of the tools and methods”.

 

She added that those detained included elderly people, children, doctors, lawyers, and merchants. 

 

“The military establishment deliberately sought to leak these images to the media to create a form of terror amongst residents,” Sarahneh told The New Arab, adding that most detainees were released without questioning after hours in public squares.

 

The mass detentions, conducted under a tight military siege imposed on 11 September, have drawn sharp condemnation from residents who say the arrests were arbitrary and intended to terrorise the civilian population.

 

The operation unfolded as Israel escalates its offensive in Gaza and expands raids across the West Bank, fuelling fears of a broader conflict.

 

 

 

 

Palestinians described rough treatment. Amjad Al-Sayed, 41, an engineer and shop owner, said he and two neighbours were marched west across the city and kept sitting on the ground for more than 17 hours, denied food, water, or medicine. 

 

“I wasn’t asked any questions, just detention, as if the occupation wanted to send a message,” he said. Qassam Faqha, 29, recounted a similar experience of long hours in custody without interrogation.

 

"There's no justification for what happened. An explosive device was certainly planted by one person or persons, not hundreds and the entire city population," he told The New Arab.

 

Israeli forces have carried out over 19,000 arrests in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the war on Gaza began on 7 October 2023, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

 

Sarahneh said Israeli forces have been seizing Palestinian homes, expelling residents, and turning the properties into field interrogation centres where they conduct arrests and use the same interrogation and torture methods found in formal detention facilities.

 

“Israel committed horrific crimes during arrests, interrogation methods, medical neglect, starvation, destruction of household belongings, and terrorising residents,” she added.

 

 

 

 

Suleiman Bsharat, director of the Yabous Center for Strategic Studies, said Israel’s use of collective punishment is “an old practice that keeps returning”.

 

In an interview with The New Arab, he noted that since the 1967 military occupation, Israeli authorities have imposed sweeping restrictions on Palestinians, closing cities and towns, enforcing curfews, and carrying out arrests, to assert control over the population.

 

During the first Intifada in 1987, Israel imposed curfews, carried out mass arrests, and used tactics such as breaking the bones of protesters to quell the uprising. During the second Intifada in 2000, it invaded cities, severed connections between them, and demolished homes.

 

Today, he added, the same approach has deepened in Gaza to the point of “extermination”.

 

Despite these harsh measures, he said, “Israel has not been able to break the will of the Palestinian people, who remain steadfast in their resistance”.

 

Local leaders warn that the current siege aims to weaken and displace Palestinians.

 

“The occupation has become more extreme, committing massacres and genocide in the Gaza Strip whilst eyeing the West Bank,” said Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil, who called the arrests an effort to create “weakness and despair”.

 

He described the arrests and destruction of camps as a policy meant both to drive residents from their homes and to signal to Israeli society that the military is actively waging war in the West Bank.

 

 

 

 

The Tulkarem operation is the latest in a series of Israeli raids across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the war in Gaza began in 2023. According to the Palestinian Government Media Office, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,040 Palestinians and wounded about 10,160 during that period.

 

Earlier this year, the Israeli military launched a major campaign dubbed “Iron Wall” targeting Tulkarem, Nur Shams, and Jenin refugee camps. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that the operation displaced over 40,000 Palestinians and involved widespread arrests.

 

Data from the Tulkarem Media Committee indicate that more than 600 homes were completely destroyed in recent assaults on Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps, with partial damage to about 2,573 others.

 

Bsharat argues that these Israeli operations, along with the recent arrests, aim to instil a sense of defeat among residents and send the message that any act of resistance will bring punishment for all.

 

He added that the mass detentions also serve “as a message to the Israeli public that its army is carrying out major operations in the West Bank,” meant to lift morale and showcase the military’s capabilities through field operations that, in his view, are designed to hone its performance.

 

At the same time, he said Israel seeks to create “pre-emptive deterrence” to discourage any future acts of resistance.

 

“Israel is a state that lives in the grip of security fears,” he said, “and that obsession drives the political and military leadership to carry out these campaigns and arrests”.

 

Officials say the demolitions align with a plan approved by Israel in May to raze 106 buildings under the pretext of opening roads and altering the area’s layout. The plan covers 58 buildings in Tulkarem camp, containing over 250 residential units and dozens of shops, and 48 buildings in Nur Shams camp, according to the Tulkarem Governorate.

 

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged “effective international intervention” to protect Tulkarem’s residents and property, warning that Israel’s “systematic policy” risks escalating the situation across the West Bank.

 

“International leniency encourages the extremist occupation government to persist in its illegal unilateral measures,” the ministry said in a statement on 12 September.

 

Sarahneh said her organisation has documented harsh interrogation methods, medical neglect, and the conversion of Palestinian homes into field interrogation centres. 

 

“The occupation wants to tell residents that any act of resistance will be met with collective punishment affecting all residents,” she said. “The coming days will see an escalation.”    

 

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.   - (ANA) - 

 

AB/ANA/18 September 2025 - - -