AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to the occupied West Bank, where Israel has deployed tanks for the first time in 20 years as part of an intensified military operation that’s already displaced some 40,000 Palestinians. Israeli forces have continued mass raids across the West Bank, destroying homes, roads and buildings, with U.N. chief António Guterres expressing grave concern by the rising Israeli violence.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Palestinians living in the Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps will not be allowed to return to their homes. On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the occupied West Bank, was photographed holding a meeting inside a Palestinian home that had been seized by the Israeli military. This comes as Israeli forces on Saturday shot dead two Palestinian children — one 12, the other 13 years old — in separate incidents.

For more, we go to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where we’re joined by Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian writer and journalist. Her recent piece for Novara Media is headlined “Days Into the Gaza Ceasefire, Israel Declared War on the West Bank.”

Can you explain what’s happening, Mariam, as you speak to us from Ramallah, from the occupied West Bank?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Thank you, Amy.

So, what is happening right now in the West Bank is not just Israel conducting what it dubs as Operation Iron Wall, a large-scale military invasion of the West Bank, but what we are seeing, in fact, is a green light of annexation. So, what is happening right now in the West Bank is de facto annexation of lands.

In the north, you have the Israeli army conducting its raids, displacing more than 40,000 Palestinians in the span of just 35 days in the areas of Tulkarm, Jenin, Tubas, as well. And what we’re seeing in the center, areas like Ramallah, Jericho, and in the south, areas like Hebron and Bethlehem, are armed settler attacks also trying to force Palestinians outside of their homes.

So we’re seeing a joint military, armed settler attack that is happening in tandem and at once against Palestinians. And it is lethal. We’ve had at least 57 Palestinians killed in the last 35 days alone, eight of whom are children. And this is not counting the injuries that are being sustained, either from live ammunition or physical beatings, and the mass arrests that are happening, including field interrogations by the Israeli army. So what we are seeing is an intensified campaign aimed at annexation of the West Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: As we talk about this, can you explain what is happening in Nur Shams, what’s happening in Tulkarm, what’s happening in Jenin, and the fact that Israel said they’re going to stay for, what, a year at least?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: That is correct. This is what the Israeli minister of defense is claiming, that in the coming year, the Israeli military will remain stationed in the refugee camps of Tulkarm, Nur Shams, which is also in the district of Tulkarm, and Jenin refugee camp. And now this comes after a massive depopulation campaign that really happened within the first two weeks of Operation Iron Wall, where they forced Palestinian families outside of their homes at gunpoint and then pursued to bomb or burn hundreds of homes in Tulkarm and in Jenin. So, essentially, Israel was not just waging a war on the families; it was changing the landscape of Jenin refugee camp and Tulkarm.

Now, within the third week of Operation Iron Wall, what we began witnessing and seeing was the Israeli army was putting up signs in Hebrew of renaming streets inside Jenin refugee camp, so this is signaling that Israel does not want to leave these areas. And you need to remember that Tulkarm, Jenin, Tubas, these are all border areas in the north. They are the only districts left between what is now Israel and what is left of the West Bank. So they’re critical and significant geopolitically for Israel, especially in its attempt to annex the Jordan Valley. They’re border states with the north of the Jordan Valley. And let’s recall that Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling for the annexation of the Jordan Valley since 2020, so this is not new, even though we’re also witnessing the use of tanks, the deployment of tanks.

Again, this is not the first time in two decades that Israel uses tanks. It has actually been using them against Palestinian Bedouin communities in the last 10 years to force them out of their lands. So what we’re seeing is a formal and official and a public declaration of war on Palestinians, despite these tactics have been happening for the past 10 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is going on as the ceasefire deal — we’ll see — is delayed or is being negotiated. The families of hostages, Israeli hostages, and supporters gathered in front of Begin Gate in Tel Aviv Saturday calling on Israel’s government to reach a deal with Hamas that would see the return of all of the captives still in Gaza. This is Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itay Svirsky was taken hostage and killed in Gaza.

NAAMA WEINBERG: We hear there is a proposal for completing phase two in a single move. The Americans want to bring everyone home at once, as does the majority of the Israeli public. The hostage families are demanding it. Yet Israel’s government is trying to drag us back into war against the will of the people and in stark opposition to the best interests of the nation. … Netanyahu, who demanded the deal be executed in phases and not in a single move, is again dragging his feet and causing delays. He is trying to appease his extremist partners at the expense of the hostages.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Naama Weinberg, who is a relative of one of the hostages who died. She is blaming Netanyahu right now. They want to see the release of all the hostages. But can you explain what happened, Mariam? There was this deal, as has happened each time recently, that Hamas would release prisoners, their hostages, and then Israel would. Israel was going to release more than 600, but they haven’t.

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: That is correct. The Israeli regime is not adhering to the agreements of the ceasefire. Now, we need to recognize that, according to Netanyahu’s government, the reason they’re delaying the release of the 600 Palestinian detainees is because, under the pretext of what Netanyahu is claiming, he does not like the way the Qassam Brigade and Hamas is releasing the Israeli hostages. Now, you need to recognize that it’s very well documented how Hamas is releasing the hostages. They are carrying out ceremonies upon their release.

Now, if that seems to be the reason why Netanyahu does not want to release Palestinian detainees, we need to ask: Would he prefer that Hamas release the hostages in the same fashion that the Israeli government is releasing Palestinian detainees? And that is with their heads shaved. That is with bruises on their faces. That is with skin disease. That is dumping bodies out of a truck into an open field.

So we really need to recognize that tactically and strategically, the way the Israeli government is behaving is like an angry teenager, and yet the problem with that is that the repercussions and the consequences on entire populations is severe, and it’s quite tragic. So, again, it shows you the impunity. It shows you the emboldenment. And it shows you the lack of respect to either life or people’s right to live freely and in dignity. And I think this is an emblematic moment of that.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff speaking about the ceasefire on CNN Sunday.

STEVE WITKOFF: We have to get an extension of phase one. And so, I’ll be going into the region this week, probably Wednesday, to negotiate that. And we are hopeful that we have the proper time to finish off — to begin phase two and finish it off and get more hostages released. … I believe the prime minister is well motivated. He wants to see hostages released, that’s for sure. He also wants to protect the state of Israel. And so, he’s got a red line, and he said what the red line is. And that is that Hamas cannot be involved in a governing body when this thing is resolved.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Mariam Barghouti, if you can, finally, comment on what he’s saying, as they move into part two of the ceasefire deal, and what is happening? I mean, next week you have Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, Jordan, meeting in Egypt, the Arab League, to decide what they will support when it comes to Gaza. Your final thoughts?

MARIAM BARGHOUTI: Right. As we can hear him say, and we’ve heard this narrative again, the Palestinians are rendered invisible. Again, the focus is on Israeli security. The focus is on the hostages. No mention of the 14,000-plus Palestinians being held by Israel, thousands of them without trial or charge, making them captives in Israel. So, again, what we’re seeing is an attempt to ignore the Palestinian right for dignity and freedom and to ignore ongoing Israeli crimes against humanity for Palestinians. So, it shows a similar trend of focusing on the colonial rights and completely negating the basic human right to live in freedom and in dignity.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll continue, of course, to cover this. Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian writer and journalist based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Her recent piece for Novara Media, we’ll link to, it’s headlined “Days Into the Gaza Ceasefire, Israel Declared War on the West Bank.”

Up next, we go to Keith LaMar, death row prisoner in Ohio State Penitentiary. We’ll speak to him live from death row. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “The Drowned and the Saved” by Keith LaMar, written with Grammy Award-winning Afro-Latin musician Arturo O’Farrill, from the album Freedom First, which Keith LaMar made with support from musicians led by Albert Marquès, a jazz pianist/composer in Brooklyn. It’s the first-ever album created and released by someone on death row from solitary confinement.