From the Committee to Protect Journalists:
As the Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, Bethan McKernan has spent much of the last year covering the escalating cycle of violence in in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It feels, she says, like “a slow-motion opening salvo of a new war.”
According to the U.S.-based non-profit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 2022 was the West Bank’s deadliest year in recent history, with over 120 reported fatalities recorded in the first 10 months. Those killed included Shireen Abu Akleh, the Al-Jazeera journalist shot dead by Israeli forces while reporting from Jenin in May 2022.
The violence has continued this year against the backdrop of rising tensions over mass protests in Israel, increased raids in the West Bank, talk of a third intifada, and predictions of a possible increase in terror attacks.