Middle East Monitor / September 15, 2022
The Biden administration urged the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to take steps to stabilize [sic] the security situation in the occupied Palestinian territories in an effort to stop it from deteriorating further.
According to the US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, the US is “greatly concerned” by the security situation beyond the Green Line.
It comes as Israeli occupation forces killed yet another Palestinian boy in a dawn raid today. Seventeen-year-old Uday Trad Salah was killed when Israeli troops stormed the town of Kafr Dan, in the Jenin district, and shot him in the head.
Salah was one of three Palestinians to be shot. He was declared dead at the scene. The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that Salah’s killing raised the number of Palestinians killed this year by Israel to 149, 34 of whom were in Jenin.
As part of the nightly raids and invasions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, Israel has been training its occupation forces to prepare for the possibility of operating armed drones during “counter-terrorism operations.”
Overnight raids by the Israeli army are a near-daily practice in the occupied West Bank. Israel claims that they are essential for intelligence purposes, but rights groups have slammed the practice, insisting that the goal is to oppress and intimidate the Palestinian population and increase state control.
Like military checkpoints and the illegal Separation Wall, insist critics, the raids are part of the DNA of the Apartheid State.
Leaf added that the US is working “to ensure to the greatest degree possible that security cooperation is robust and continuing.”
She also warned Chair of Israel’s National Security Council Eyal Hulata, last week, of an eminent collapse of the PA.
She reiterated to him that the ball is currently in Israel’s court, urging, “We call for you to take quick measures to help the PA.”
