For months, as death and destruction rained down on Gaza, analysts have been calling the world's attention to Israel's simultaneous war on the other Palestinian territories, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The plight of Palestinians in the West Bank has garnered some global attention as Israel launched its largest military operation there in more than two decades, inflicting wanton destruction of properties and infrastructure in the northern cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas. Its forces have killed and wounded scores of Palestinians over the past 10 days, adding to the more than 6,000 casualties in the occupied territory since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7. In occupied East Jerusalem, however, experts say Israel has taken a different approach, using the Gaza war to accelerate the 'silent displacement' of Palestinians to reshape its demographic landscape. The strategy there has four main elements: demolitions, evictions, land confiscation, and expansion of illegal settlements. It is designed specifically to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, imposing further restrictions on Palestinian residents, and advancing Israel's 'settler colonial' ambitions. 'All measures of forced displacement have seen a drastic escalation since Oct. 7, and Israel is well known to exploit these kinds of situations in order to advance its settler colonial endeavors,' said Tamara Tamimi, a Palestinian policy fellow at think tank Al-Shabaka living in East Jerusalem. 'Israel has exploited its genocidal onslaught on Gaza in order to advance settler colonialism in other key strategic areas, particularly Jerusalem and Area C in the remainder of the West Bank.' A crucial actor in this 'large escalation' is the illegal settler movement and the organizations associated with it in key strategic areas in Jerusalem, she said. Source: Anadolu Agency