The highest responsible for the Israeli Army, Eyal Zamir, has ordered this Thursday to increase the number of troops deployed on the ground in light of what he qualifies as "tensions" in the West Bank, in a context of a greater number of attacks attributed to settlers and operations by security forces in the area.
"In light of the tensions in Judea and Samaria --the biblical name for the West Bank-- and the upcoming holiday period, I have ordered to raise the alert level," he stated, before detailing that a military division remains prepared to reinforce the deployment if the situation requires it. "Preparations must be made for the immediate activation of units and battalions to reinforce the area," he added.
In this line, he emphasized that "there are many challenges ahead" and stressed that Israeli forces "continue with battle procedures in all scenarios, from Iran and Lebanon to Gaza," as stated in a statement released by the Israel Defense Forces. "They are on maximum alert due to explosiveness in multiple scenarios," he explained.
For its part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) places the number of Palestinians killed at 79 and the injured at nearly 1,850 at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank so far this year, a dynamic that has intensified since the attacks of October 7, 2023, led by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).