As soon as the "Jewish Passover" entered its date last Friday, settlers stormed dozens of Palestinian archaeological and religious sites, the most serious of which was yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, after more than 10,000 Israeli settlers stormed Jabal al-Zuhur (the evacuated settlement of Homesh) perched on the lands of the village of Burqa near the city of Nablus. northern West Bank.

This was preceded by intense incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts by settlers to make sacrifices inside it, as well as the desecration of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, amid a Palestinian political situation tinged with both caution and danger, for fear of an escalation looming on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The storming of "Homish" and others was not quick and rapid, but continued for several hours, which were prepared in a great way, as thousands of settlers gathered near the settlement of "Shave Shomron" and set out via large buses to "Homush", amid heavy security from the occupation army, which preempted this march and closed it The entrance to Cyrenaica and the surrounding villages and the main road to Jenin-Nablus Street to protect settlers.

And Israeli political figures participated in the storming, including Itamar Ben Gvir, a member of the Israeli Knesset, known for his incitement against the Palestinians, and the extremist Petzal Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party.

A side of the settlers storming the evacuated settlement of Homesh (communication sites)

The connotations of the crowd

This settlement mobilization is attributed to the Palestinian specialist in Israeli affairs, Azzam Abu Al-Adas, for the great mobilization and incitement and for the continuous efforts over the years of the settlement associations that included about 300 archaeological and religious sites in the West Bank in their educational curricula.

The strength of these associations, which enjoy government support, led to the creation of a competition between the Israeli parties to support them and win their favor.

In addition to this, the settlers’ conviction and their intense and focused attempts to return to the West Bank settlements (5 settlements and army camps) that were vacated in 2005 as part of the unilateral evacuation plan implemented by the Sharon government at the time, including the settlement of Homesh, and to rebuild it.

On this matter, Abu Adass revealed that negotiations are currently taking place between the settlement associations and the Likud party led by Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the settlers stipulated that rebuilding the evacuated settlements be an essential part of his electoral campaign.

The settlers have also taken advantage of the stagnation of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank since 2007, during which their strength has grown during these years and their numbers have risen from 130,000 to 800,000 settlers now in more than 300 settlements and outposts, and they seek to reach the “one million settlers project in the West Bank that has been planned for 4 decades.” End 2025.

Yesterday, the settlement intrusion into Homesh was preceded by a similar incursion, with twice the number, last December, when more than 20,000 settlers penetrated it after the killing of an Israeli settler at its entrance by Palestinian resistance.

Palestinian youths tried to confront the storming of settlers, but the occupation army confronted them, injuring dozens of them (Al-Jazeera)

review and blackmail

Perhaps this timing - according to Abu Adass - is the most appropriate for the settlement parties, on the one hand, they want to demonstrate their strength in the street and against the Israeli government, which is witnessing a gradual fragmentation and collapse due to the successive resignations in it.

It also blackmails other political parties and supports those who achieve their demands, especially since those settlement parties have become counted from 12 to 15 seats in the elections, due to the decline of the left as an equivalent force to the Israeli right.

Despite this, the occupation government does not seek any escalation, says Abu al-Adas, and considers that the “knockout blow” that it may inflict is the intifada in the West Bank and thus a clash between two million Palestinians and 800,000 settlers, which it cannot contain, “but the settlers want to drag it into that.”

Despite this, the "reasonable" in the Israeli security establishment, as Abu Adass, see any intifada as a very serious danger, since the occupying state will not be able to fight on 4 fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, the occupied Palestinian interior, and the diaspora.

For this reason, Israel eased its security measures on the city of Jenin and the rest of the West Bank, restored economic facilities, and responded to the Egyptian mediator by stopping the escalation in Gaza and using the "limited response" to it, and stopping the incursions into the West Bank.

From a huge march organized by more than 20,000 settlers towards Homesh in late December (Al-Jazeera)

Crowd and conditions

While the Palestinian politician and former Minister of the Wall and Settlement Authority Walid Assaf agreed with Abu Al-Adas that the settlers are now mobilizing because they believe that the conditions are favorable to implement their programs in Al-Aqsa and the project to restore the settlements evacuated in 2005, he saw that there is no difference between the settlers and their “terrorist” organizations and plans and the Israeli government and its schemes.

Assaf told Al Jazeera Net that the Bennet settlement government is implementing its "undeclared" program, because it believes that the conditions are more favorable now with the world's preoccupation with the Russian-Ukrainian war and the state of Arab normalization rushing towards Israel, the last of which appeared in the "Negev Summit" before Ramadan.

Assaf believes that Israel has resolved its position that there is no peace or even negotiations with the Palestinians, and went to perpetuate the fait accompli through the scheme of closed and isolated cantons in the West Bank, "and this came into effect", as well as the adoption of the plan for the temporal and spatial division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was approved by the Israeli cabinet ( Al Kabenet) two weeks ago and the start of its full implementation.

Politically, Assaf asserts that the Palestinian position so far is not the same as the steps taken by the Israeli government and settlers, and says that Israel is implementing a huge project and seeking to impose a new reality in the West Bank and Al-Aqsa, taking advantage of the recent guerrilla operations inside Tel Aviv, and this is similar in size to "the project to build the apartheid wall 20 years ago." When it took advantage of Palestinian martyrdom operations for that."

Settler buses gather before leaving for Homesh (communication sites)

Palestinian weakness

By examining the Palestinians' political situation, they are in an unenviable condition that led to such incursions by settlers and incursions by the thousands, according to the Palestinian thinker and politician Mustafa Barghouti.

Barghouti adds that the Zionist movement is a "failure" because it was not able to abolish the Palestinian human existence, as it is not just a quantitative existence but a resistance existence as well.

Despite this, he realizes that the settlers are the politically ruling force now, and they are the ones who decide the success or fall of any government, and that "Bennett" is a settler and represents a movement of settlers, and therefore we are talking about a settlement movement that has the upper hand in deciding Israeli policy and the entire Israeli political system is subject to its interests.

In the face of all this, the Palestinians have no choice but to end the occupation and bring down the Israeli apartheid regime in all of historic Palestine, says Barghouti.