Israel trying to recreate Gaza in the West Bank, warns Jordan

Exclusive: Jordanian brief accuses Israel’s ‘extremist government’ of recreating the security conditions in war-ravaged Gaza to force Palestinians from their lands, writes chief international correspondent Bel Trew

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Israel is pushing the occupied West Bank “toward an explosion” that threatens the entire region, senior Jordanian officials have warned, accusing Israel’s far-right government of trying to recreate the security conditions of Gaza to force Palestinians from their land.

“The far-right government in Israel is purposefully escalating the situation in the West Bank to enforce new geographic and demographic realities,” the document read, accusing Israel of trying to “prepare for a scenario of security chaos”.

Israel, it added, “seeks to worsen the security situation in the West Bank in a manner similar to that in Gaza, with the goal of pushing Palestinians towards forced displacement as a result of suffocating livelihoods and under the guise of ‘voluntary emigration’”.

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The brief concluded that Israel’s policies, ultimately aimed “at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state”, will “drive the security situation in the Palestinian territories toward an explosion, which is a danger for the entire region”.

Amman has repeatedly warned that the security implications of Israeli policy in the West Bank, including mass forcible displacement, would destroy the notion of a future Palestinian state, threaten its own stability and that of the region.

Since then, Israel has built and expanded its settlements: the West Bank is now home to more than 500,000 Israeli settlers. Three million Palestinians also live there under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in scattered enclaves.

Violence has surged since Hamas’s deadly 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza, which a UN inquiry has since concluded is a genocide.

As the situation has worsened in September, the UK announced plans to introduce a ban on the trade of goods produced within Israeli settlements. Foreign secretary Ed Miliband said: “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists.” The move prompted severe backlash in Israel.