Israeli forces raid West Bank as settlers storm holy site in Nablus

Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians during a series of raids across the occupied West Bank on Thursday, as military violence in the region continues to climb to its highest levels in decades.

The military operations coincided with reports of Israeli settlers storming Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, a site revered as the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph.

Before dawn on Thursday, the Israeli military deployed soldiers and a fleet of military vehicles to towns north of Tulkarem. In Nablus, Israeli forces destroyed a Palestinian-owned factory.

In Bethlehem, troops raided the home of a Palestinian man who was shot and killed a day earlier. Israeli officials alleged the man had attempted a knife attack before he was killed. Soldiers arrested two of the man's brothers during the house raid.

The military also seized a five-story residential building in the city of Hebron.

Israeli military activity in the West Bank has escalated sharply since October 2023. According to the United Nations, attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have reached unprecedented levels during this period.

Analysis: Recent escalations in the West Bank reveal a deepening dual-track strategy—a coordinated synergy between official military maneuvers and civilian settler activity. Far from being independent actors, these two forces are operating in lockstep to ramp up pressure and expand Israeli jurisdiction across the territory.

The recent incursions into Joseph’s Tomb, which notably included members of the Knesset, transcend isolated extremist provocation. They represent high-stakes political signaling intended to assert Jewish sovereignty over sensitive religious landmarks, effectively hollowing out the region’s fragile status quo. This increased boldness is widely viewed as a direct byproduct of the political cover provided by Israel’s current far-right governing coalition.

Simultaneously, military operations—characterized by the destruction of industrial infrastructure, the seizure of residential property, and mass detentions—have shifted beyond traditional security containment. These measures suggest a deliberate policy of economic attrition and population displacement, designed to make Palestinian life untenable in strategically significant areas. By establishing these irreversible "facts on the ground," the strategy is driving a de facto annexation of the West Bank, rendering the prospect of a viable two-state solution increasingly obsolete.

The conflict in the West Bank has no direct economic impact on Vietnamese-American small businesses, from the nail salon industry to phở restaurants, nor does it affect the flow of remittances or standard immigration pathways such as F2B, H-1B, TPS, and EB-5 visas. However, the ongoing violence and instability in the Holy Land—a region of profound spiritual significance to major faiths—have sparked deep humanitarian and religious concerns within the community and across Little Saigons nationwide.