Where was the Israeli army on October 7?

For decades, Israel has prioritized illegal settlement for Jewish Israelis in the West Bank.

In the early hours of Saturday, October 7, Israelis living near the border with Gaza awoke to the sounds of Hamas fighters killing and kidnapping their neighbors. As the hours stretched on and they hid, terrified, their frantic text messages contained versions of this question: where is the army?

To answer that question, we need to travel to the West Bank.

Watch the video above to better understand how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s obsessive focus on the West Bank has left Israelis everywhere vulnerable.

Further reading and sources:

• Read Nathan Thrall’s latest book: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama
• B’Tselem has a lot of background on settler violence and Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian land
• We used settlement data from Peace Now
• Amnesty International put out a comprehensive report that provided background
• We relied a lot on the data and research from Visualizing Palestine
• We used military data compiled by Al Jazeera

You can find the video above and the entire library of Vox’s videos on YouTube.