While the world’s gaze remains fixed on the conflagration in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank simmers with its own brand of volatility—less headline-grabbing, but no less corrosive to the region’s long-frayed political and social fabric.

Israeli forces stormed the town of Aqraba, south of Nablus, in yet another late-night raid emblematic of the military’s deepening footprint in Palestinian urban centres. Local sources, speaking to the Wafa news agency, reported the use of tear gas and confrontations between troops and residents. Though no injuries were confirmed, such incursions are now so routine as to barely register in the broader narrative—yet they steadily stoke resentment, tension, and instability.

Further south, in the rugged terrain of Masafer Yatta near Hebron, the more insidious threat of settler violence continues to escalate. Israeli settlers—reportedly under the protection of the army—attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Susya, attempting forced entry and confronting residents in scenes of intimidation and aggression. Such attacks, increasingly frequent and largely met with impunity, form part of what Palestinians and rights groups describe as a campaign of creeping annexation: a steady push to displace communities through harassment, legal coercion, and brute force.

These incidents, while localized, are not isolated. They represent the slow but steady erosion of Palestinian civil life in the West Bank—an erosion not marked by dramatic airstrikes or siege, but by the grind of occupation and the vigilante logic of settler extremism. Amid a broader regional conflagration, the West Bank remains a crucible of unresolved tensions—each confrontation, each raid, each shattered home a reminder that the conflict’s centre of gravity may shift, but its reach remains tragically expansive.