In the West Bank, Trump is giving Netanyahu a free hand to blow up the region

Anyone who imagined that US President Donald Trump would be the Stop the War president the Middle East had been waiting for, should have a look at what is currently underway in the Occupied West Bank.

Dumbfounded by the sight of hundreds of well turned out Hamas fighters and jeeps surrounding the Red Cross transport vehicle which held the first three Israeli hostages to be released, the Israeli army is laying waste to Jenin with a fury uninhibited by 15 months of continuous war.

The images from the hostage release in Gaza City shocked an Israeli public fed on myths of total victory. "After a year and four months, in which the public's eyes have been flooded with information and baseless narratives of stories of total victory and revenge, the Israeli public sees from Gaza images of Toyotas, armed Hamas members and Gaza rising from the ruins,"  journalist Israel Frey told Middle East Eye.

That said, the large-scale ground assault on the West Bank refugee camps was preplanned. But its timing was enough to keep Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far right finance minister and de facto consul general of the occupied West Bank, in the cabinet when he threatened to resign over the ceasefire in Gaza.

The other item in Smotrich’s sweetie bag was the promise to clear out the army leadership. 

Read more: In the West Bank, Trump is giving Netanyahu a free hand to blow up the region