The latest attack took place on the night of Saturday August 13 to Sunday August 14. A 26-year-old Palestinian shot at a bus returning from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, injuring eight people, including a pregnant woman. The assailant, a resident of the eastern part of the city, surrendered to the police a few hours later; he does not appear to be affiliated with any movement.
Since the beginning of spring, a series of attacks have claimed eighteen victims in Israel and around an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. The authors, young men, have for many a profile of lone wolves. But the multiplication of these attacks is linked to the rise of a new armed resistance in the West Bank in recent months. In response, the Israeli army intensified violent arrests in the West Bank and carried out an operation in Gaza.
On August 5, Israel bombarded the Palestinian enclave, launching a deadly three-day standoff with Islamic Jihad in which 49 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority of them civilians, according to Palestinian sources. On August 9, the Israeli army killed another three Palestinians during an incursion into Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Among them, Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, 19, was one of the symbols of this new generation.
At his funeral, tens of thousands of people, mostly young men, vowed to avenge his death, to the sound of the sharp crack of automatic rifle fire. Before dying, the one who had been nicknamed the “Lion of Nablus” recorded a message “Protect our homeland. Do not drop your weapons. » Twice, Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi escaped Israeli forces, in February and July. We had thought he was dead, he had reappeared, armed, during the funerals of his killed comrades, becoming a hero with a large audience on TikTok. The Israeli army accuses him “for carrying out several armed attacks against civilians and soldiers” Israelis in the Nablus area. “Ibrahim is gone, but there are a thousand Ibrahims”assures his cousin and companion in the fight Ameed Al-Nabulsi, who welcomes visitors who have come to offer their condolences.
“Lost Generation”
The 19-year-old fighter represents part of this youth of the West Bank, without political horizon, who grew up on the ashes of the peace process, spectators and victims of an Israeli occupation in the service of a colonization which nibbles ever more land. “The generation between 20 and 30 is looking for itself, it is lost, no faction can contain it, notes Fatah deputy Jamal Tirawi, one of the critical voices against the Palestinian Authority. After the second Intifada, there was a pacification and we moved away from the armed struggle. For a year, a year and a half, this new generation has been reconnecting with this culture. And the Israelis want to liquidate it, in an abject way. » In the middle of the electoral campaign, Israel is increasing its murderous incursions into the West Bank: since the beginning of the year, according to the local health ministry, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the Occupied Territories.
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