Entire Palestinian City Encircled and Cut Off After Hit and Run Injures Israeli child

IDF Soldiers Strom Ramallah | Image source: Yediot Aharonot

Israeli forces began encircling the city of Ramallah on Sunday evening, imposing widespread road closures and a security cordon following reports of a suspected car-ramming attack near the Atarot settlement north of the city, where a 13-year-old Israeli child sustained minor injuries.

Initial alerts were issued by Israeli Army Radio, which reported that a Palestinian vehicle struck a person near Atarot before fleeing the scene. Channel 12 later confirmed that Israeli forces had launched a manhunt for the suspect, describing the incident as a hit-and-run attack resulting in minor injuries to an Israeli individual, there is no evidence provided that this was a terror related incident, as it has been framed in the Israeli media. The young child thankfully sustained only minor injuries, while the driver of the vehicle remains at large.

Shortly after the incident, Yediot Aharonot reported that the Israeli army had begun encircling Ramallah, a city with a population of over 50,000 people. Israeli military statements released over the course of the evening confirmed that forces were closing roads, imposing a security cordon, and conducting combing operations in and around the city as part of the search, punishing the entire population of the city for the crime of the hit and run.

Al Jazeera Arabic and WAFA correspondents, confirmed the closure of roads connecting Ramallah and Nablus and described a coordinated encirclement of Ramallah and the nearby town of Birzeit. These reports detailed the deployment of checkpoints and barriers on major approaches, effectively cutting off movement into and out of the city.

Punishing an entire city for the crime of a single person is highly unusual, even for Israel, with the response looking more like a reprisal attack than a manhunt for the driver of a vehicle.

It’s not just the overreaction that is notable here, but also the distinct lack of reporting in the English-speaking media. Outside of Palestinian sources, we have had to rely on Hebrew language reporting, papers that are infamously more honest in their Hebrew websites than they are in their English variants. This absence of English-speaking reporters on this story just works to highlight the fact that Palestinians aren’t seen as newsworthy in the eyes of many in the Western press, not even when Israeli media cover a story in depth.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that two teenagers were injured by Israeli gunfire in the town of Azzun near Qalqilya. The circumstances surrounding that incident remain unclear, and it is not yet known whether it is directly connected to the security operations underway around Ramallah.

Throughout the day, there have been more Israeli attacks inside the yellow line in the Gaza Strip, the Jabalia refugee camp in central Gaza coming under attack, along with bombing in Khan Yunis, where houses are being demolished.

While the rest of the media sphere seems intent on ignoring matters Palestinian, it is more important than ever that we pay attention to the continued plight of the people there. Between collective punishment, random shootings and consistent ceasefire violations, you would hear about none of it if you were to rely solely on legacy media, which is just a disgrace to journalism.

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