Israeli parties compete on brutality against Palestinians, says analyst

A political analyst says different political parties and groups in Israel are in a serious competition to suppress the Palestinian people.

Joe Catron, a member of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, made the comments in an interview with Press TV after Israeli troops killed 10 Palestinians and injured at least 102 others during a Wednesday raid on Nablus in the occupied West Bank. 

According to the Palestinian health ministry, 82 people were injured by live ammunition, many of them still in critical condition. 

“Israeli political parties and governing coalitions compete with each other on the basis of their brutality against Palestinians, each wants to accomplish at least as many atrocities as the last regime,” Catron said.

He said the United States has repeatedly emphasized that it has included all-round support for Israel in its policies and that it needs the presence of Israel to advance its goals in the region.

“We all know regrettably that the United States is unconditional in its support for Israel and its crimes. Our President Joe Biden has said multiple times that if there were no Israel, the United States would have to invent one to advance its interests in the region. So these US attempts have to be seen in the context of the US ultimately trying to advance its shared goals with Israel perhaps through slightly different strategies.”

Catron said the United States uses its influence in international organizations including the United Nations and opposes UN resolutions at any cost, adding it "does not allow Israel's brutality in the occupied territories to be condemned and controlled as it should be".

“The United States sees Israel as a very useful asset in the area to achieve its own goals and that's why the United States is also ironclad in its support for Israel in the United Nations."

Mass funeral held in West Bank for Palestinians killed in Israeli raid on Nablus

Palestinians hold mass funeral for those martyred earlier during an Israeli military raid in northern West Bank.

Wednesday’s bloody clashes broke out after Israeli forces stormed Nablus with dozens of armored vehicles and blocked off all entrances to the city. They then surrounded a home with two Palestinian fighters Hossam Isleem and Mohammad Abdulghan, both of whom were killed by Israeli fire.

Resistance group Lions’ Den later announced that it engaged in clashes with Israeli forces alongside the recently announced Balata Brigades group as dozens of young Palestinians pelted armored vehicles with rocks.

Other Palestinian resistance groups strongly condemned the Israeli aggression as they pledged retaliation.

Catron said, “We are dealing with an actual resistance which Israel is doing everything in its power to suppress for various complicated reasons."

"Parts of the West Bank in Jenin and Nablus and elsewhere are simply spinning out of its control as well as out of the control of the Palestinian Authority which we often see reinforcing Israel's attempts to rule and they're doing everything they're capable of to suppress this new resistance which we haven't really seen in the West Bank.”

The latest carnage brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied territories since the start of 2023 to 61 people, including 13 children.

The deadly attack also comes less than a month after Israeli forces raided the city of Jenin and its neighboring refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank, killing ten Palestinians in one of the deadliest raids in years.

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