The most intense phase of Israeli aggression in the West Bank since the Second Intifada has gone largely unnoticed, partly due to the vast scale and atrocity of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, yet its repercussions could be equally catastrophic.
Shock and awe perfectly encapsulates the actions Israel took in the occupied West Bank immediately after October 7, 2023, coinciding with the onset of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine, describes “shock and awe” not just as a warfare method but as a political-economic tactic that leverages collective trauma—be it from conflict, disaster, or financial breakdown—to enforce drastic reforms usually met with resistance. According to Klein, traumatized societies become disoriented and susceptible, enabling authorities to implement sweeping changes while opposition remains fragmented or incapacitated.
Though this approach is often associated with US foreign interventions—from Iraq to Haiti—Israel has deployed shock-and-awe more frequently, methodically, and with greater sophistication. Unlike the US’s sporadic application in distant regions, Israel consistently utilizes this strategy against a captive population under direct military occupation.
Indeed, this tactic has been a longstanding default for Israel in suppressing Palestinians. Over decades, it has been executed across occupied Palestinian lands and even into neighboring Arab states whenever Israeli strategic goals demanded it.
What is underway, therefore, is a race against time. Israel is working to consolidate what it hopes will become an irreversible new reality on the ground.
In Lebanon, this became known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after Beirut’s Dahiya neighborhood devastated by Israel in its 2006 war. This doctrine promotes using excessive force against civilian zones, deliberately destroying infrastructure, and leveling entire districts to discourage resistance via collective punishment.
Gaza has been the primary target of this strategy. In the lead-up to the genocide, Israeli leaders framed their repeated attacks as limited, “managed” conflicts intended to routinely degrade Palestinian opposition.
This was encapsulated in the “mowing the lawn” doctrine, a term used by Israeli military planners to justify periodic bouts of overwhelming violence to “reestablish deterrence.” The underlying assumption was that Gaza’s political situation was unsolvable and must be indefinitely controlled through cyclical destruction.
The campaign unleashed in the West Bank soon after the Gaza genocide bore a striking resemblance.
From October 2023 onwards, Israel initiated an unparalleled wave of violence throughout the West Bank. This comprised large-scale military incursions into urban centers and refugee camps, frequent airstrikes—previously uncommon there—the extensive use of armored units, and a surge in settler attacks often supported or carried out with the active involvement of Israeli forces.
The number of casualties surged drastically, with hundreds of Palestinians killed within a few months, including children. Refugee camps such as Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm endured systematic devastation: roads were uprooted, houses destroyed, water and power systems dismantled, and medical care drastically limited. Israeli troops repeatedly besieged communities, blocking ambulances, reporters, and humanitarian workers from access.
Simultaneously, Israel accelerated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages, particularly within Area C. Numerous Bedouin and rural hamlets were forcibly evacuated through a mix of military directives, settler violence, demolition orders, and deprivation of essential resources like land and water. Families were subjected to continuous intimidation aimed at undermining daily life.
Nevertheless, this brutal phase of Israeli hostility in the West Bank since the Second Intifada (2000-2005) has been mostly overshadowed by the overwhelming atrocities committed in Gaza. The total destruction of Gaza dominates global awareness, eclipsing West Bank violence, even though its lasting impact could be equally severe.
At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his radical coalition have projected themselves internationally as reckless, unrestricted, and ideologically motivated—ready and capable of extending the cycle of devastation beyond Gaza into the West Bank and neighboring Arab nations. This display of extremism was itself a calculated political maneuver.
The results are now undeniable. Vast territories in the West Bank are left in ruins, entire populations fragmented, as their communities’ social and physical structures are methodically dismantled. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, over 12,000 Palestinian children remain displaced, with growing indications that this displacement may turn permanent rather than temporary.
History teaches an essential lesson: the Palestinian fight against Israeli settler colonialism shows that Palestinians do not stay passive forever. Even as their political leadership falters and fragments, Palestinian society continually renews its ability to resist.
Israel recognizes this truth as well. It is aware that shock cannot last indefinitely, that terror eventually leads to defiance, and that when the initial trauma diminishes, Palestinians will reorganize to contest the imposed conditions of oppression.
Thus, a race against time is underway. Israel aims to secure what it hopes will become a permanent new status quo—facilitating official annexation, entrenching continuous military dominance, and completing the ethnic cleansing of large portions of the Palestinian population.
Because of this, a deeper, consistent understanding of the unfolding situation in the West Bank is vital. Without directly confronting these realities, Israeli ambitions will likely proceed uncontested. Challenging, resisting, and ultimately defeating these plans is not merely a political task but a moral obligation, intimately connected to supporting the Palestinian people in reclaiming their dignity and securing their long-denied freedom.
Original article: commondreams.org
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