Israeli forces have sealed off entrances to Tulkarem in the northern occupied West Bank, further escalating a campaign of raids, arrests and collective punishment that has displaced thousands of Palestinians as the military relentlessly destroys Gaza.Footage from Thursday night shared by residents showed soldiers marching Palestinians in lines through the streets in what many described as a humiliating show of force.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listTulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil appealed to the international community on Friday, urging the United Nations General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and humanitarian groups to act against what he called “crimes” being committed against the city’s nearly 100,000 residents.Kamil said Israeli forces were “arbitrarily and unjustly” carrying out mass arrests, storming homes, destroying property and “terrorising children and women”, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.On Thursday, Israeli forces in Tulkarem were allegedly struck by what Israel called an explosive device that injured two Israeli soldiers.Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Doha, described “videos of the Israeli forces dragging hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians from their homes, from their cafes, from even a garage … in a show of humiliation”.“They’re trying to remind everyone that if there is any incident in any place in the occupied West Bank that they do not like … they’re going to crack down, not just on the perpetrators … but on everyone in that vicinity,” said Ibrahim.She added that Israel’s crackdown has displaced “tens of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes … rendering the city, the refugee camps into ghost towns”. Ibrahim said Palestinians see this as part of a broader policy, with Israeli forces trying “to crack down on Palestinians and really … remind them who has the upper hand and control in the occupied West Bank”. Advertisement Elsewhere in the West Bank, five young P …
