As the world focuses on Gaza, the West Bank has reached boiling point. Here’s what to know

By Kara Fox, CNN

(CNN) — Israel’s assault on Gaza since the Hamas-led October 7 attack has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, drawing international condemnation. But just 60 miles away, another major escalation of violence has also been playing out in the West Bank, where more than 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops since the war began.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it began an expansive offensive in the occupied West Bank, launching raids and airstrikes in densely populated civilian areas in Jenin and Tulkarem that have killed at least 15 people so far.

The attacks are occurring amid a surge in Israeli settler violence across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, where some settlers continue a campaign targeting Palestinian civilians and infrastructure.

Israel says its military operation in the West Bank is necessary to stem further terror attacks on its territory. Palestinian leaders say the violence will only lead to “dire and dangerous results.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to immediately cease its operation, saying it was a “deeply concerning” development.

As Israel signals its operation is only just getting started, here’s what you need to know about the occupied territory and why bloodshed is escalating there.

What is the West Bank and who controls it?

The West Bank, a territory that lies between Israel and Jordan, is home to 3.3 million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation as well as hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis who began settling there some 57 years ago.

Israel began its occupation after the 1967 Six-Day War, where it captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel argues that Jews have a biblical and ancestral right to the land.

Soon after, it began establishing Israeli communities in those territories. The West Bank remains where the bulk of those settlements, illegal under international law, are.

In the 1990s, Israel and Palestinian factions began a peace process with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state. That process, known as the Oslo Accords, led to the creation of an interim Palestinian government known as the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, with nominal control over the West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks have been frozen for years and the current Israeli government has ruled out granting independence to the Palestinians.

Today, the PA has administrative and security control of 18% of the West Bank, while 22% is under joint Israeli and PA control. Israel has sole control over the remaining 60%, where most of Jewish settlements are.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. In 2007, Hamas seized control of that territory after winning elections.

In July, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court, issued an unprecedented advisory opinion  that found Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal, and called on Israel to end its decades-long occupation.

Who are the settlers in the West Bank?

There are more than 700,000 settlers living in the West Bank, the presence of every one of them considered illegal under international law.

They are spread across 146 settlements throughout the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem. The vast majority of settlements are built by government order, but some unauthorized settlements, known as settlement outposts, have been established by ideologically driven Israeli civilians with the hope that they will one day be authorized by the government.

Many of the settlements encroach on Palestinian villages and, in some cases, privately owned Palestinian land. Some are built in close proximity to Palestinian population centers and one, in Hebron, sits in the heart of a Palestinian town. In East Jerusalem, there are 14 Israeli neighborhoods, which the international community considers illegal.

The expansion of settlements has been a top priority for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which has supercharged the approval of land seizures in the West Bank during its tenure, despite human rights groups calling it a war crime. 

In July, Israel approved the largest seizure of land in the West Bank since the Oslo peace process, according to the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog PeaceNow.

The settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are seen as a major obstacle to peace as they sit on land that Palestinians, along with the international community, view as territory for a future Palestinian state.

What has been happening in the West Bank since the war began?

Tensions have been rising in the West Bank for many years, but October 7 has ushered in a volatile new chapter in the occupied territory.

On that day, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages, according to the Israeli authorities. Israel subsequently launched a war in Gaza that has killed 40,476 people, according to Palestinian authorities.

Since the start of the war, 652 Palestinians have also been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 150 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Over 5,400 people have been injured.

The violence has been especially stark for children, according to the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA),  who said in an August report that the number of Palestinian children in the West Bank who have been killed by Israeli forces’ bullets nearly tripled in a year.

Meanwhile, settler attacks have been unfolding for months without significant consequence or accountability.

In February, hundreds of settlers carried out one of the largest attacks on Palestinians in years in the town of Huwara and surrounding areas after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers who lived nearby. In the aftermath of the violence, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler who opposes Palestinian sovereignty, said that “Huwara needs to be erased.”

Earlier this month, more than 70 armed settlers invaded the town of Jit, firing bullets and tear gas at Palestinian residents and setting several homes, cars and other property on fire. One person was killed. The attacks drew condemnation from top Israeli officials, but far-right members of Netanyahu’s government and settlement leaders deflected blame away from the settlers.

In total, at least 1,270 settler attacks against Palestinians have been recorded since October 7, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Of those, over 120 attacks “led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries,” OCHA reported.

Meanwhile, the United States, Israel’s strongest military and diplomatic backer, imposed a series of sanctions this year on Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank, blocking their financial assets and barring them from entering the US.

“The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel’s own security,” the US State Department said in a statement last month.

Who is the current Israeli military campaign targeting in the West Bank?

Israel launched a large counter-terror operation in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarem on Wednesday, where authorities said that over “150 shooting and explosive attacks” have originated in the last year.

Israel claims that the northern West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, has seen a rise in Palestinian militant groups, bolstered by what it says is an Iranian campaign to distribute weapons there.

Local militias are also gaining traction in the northern West Bank, groups largely comprised of disillusioned young men that have grown up under the Israeli occupation and who deeply resent the unpopular PA, which is seen as aiding the Israeli occupation and unable to protect them from it.

The PA condemned “violation and crimes” by Israel on Wednesday, “especially the ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip and the targeting of the northern West Bank.”

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group condemned the Israeli military’s “comprehensive aggression,” referring to it as an “open and undeclared war.”

On Thursday, the IDF said that it killed five militants, including Muhhamad Jabber, a commander affiliated with the PIJ’s military wing, the Al-Quds brigade.

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CNN’s Abbas Al Lawati and Abeer Salman contributed reporting.