Jerusalem24 – The West Bank including East Jerusalem has woken up to a full strike this morning. All governmental, public, private, and commercial institutions are closed, and public transport between cities has also been suspended.
Photos have been emerging this morning on social media of schools, universities, and courts remaining closed; of local shops with their metal shutters drawn. Banks are the only institution that is to remain open throughout the day.
Israeli media and pundits are calling the failure to capture Tamimi after an 11-day military siege on Shuafat, as well as his carrying out a second shooting attack near Jerusalem, “a failure of the Israeli security system”.
Rallying call reaches Gaza
After news of Tamimi’s death spread around midnight last, confrontations between local youth and Israeli forces broke out simultaneously in villages and cities across the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Protestors took to the streets, including in several locations in the Gaza Strip, both on foot and in cars, rallying in town centers and in front of checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers.
تغطية صحفية: “مسيرة في بلدة كفر نعمة غرب رام الله”. pic.twitter.com/mwFxQmloGU
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) October 19, 2022
According to local reports, armed Palestinian fighters targeted Israeli soldiers stationed at Al-Jalameh checkpoint north of Jenin shortly before midnight last night, as well as near the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El just north of Ramallah.
Armed group the Lions’ Den also claimed three shooting attacks targeting the Israeli military surrounding Nablus this morning before dawn.
An expression of frustration
While the strike today – the most comprehensive and widely observed strike yet this year – was called in mourning for Tamimi, it is also an expression of frustration at the sheer number of Palestinians killed this year, over a quarter of which are children, and of solidarity with residents of East Jerusalem and Nablus who have been facing protracted military sieges, while the rest of the West Bank has been dealing with suffocating road closures and restrictions.
While Shuafat may now reasonably expect some measure of alleviation of the current restrictions, Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank continues to endure a near-total lockdown on the city, with military checkpoints closed, additional checkpoints installed, and the roads leading to its surrounding villages sealed with dirt mounds.
Israeli forces also continue to maintain intensively restrictive closures across the West Bank, with morning commuters facing hours-long waits in traffic, and many residents foregoing leaving the city centers altogether.
In scenes strongly reminiscent of the Second Intifada, video footage and photographs have begun emerging on social media over the past several days of vehicles being pushed through dusty, mountainous paths by their passengers in order to bypass the closures.
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