As Palestinians in Hebron navigate life without the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) observers, it is worth looking back on how oppressive and violent life was even with outsiders watching. Eric Garner would find the city eerily familiar.
Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier charged with manslaughter after shooting a wounded Palestinian in the head, now has a paid position on the political campaign of an Israeli Prime Minister candidate.
Azaria served 14 months for the killing. He returned to Hebron a folk hero and celebrity.
The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) has observed & documented Israeli violations of international law for 22 years. Netanyahu has cancelled their mandate following a leaked TIPH report of widespread Israeli abuse. Palestinians fear the worst without the watchful eye of TIPH; Israeli settlers say it will be “a breath of fresh air.”
Israeli forces prepare to demolish a school in Hebron, West Bank on 11 July 2018 [DonnaBaranski-Walker/Twitter] Children in occupied West Bank schools are attacked and traumatized on a regular basis, as a matter of official policy. These are stories from just November and ten days in December (subsidized by American tax dollars). compiled by If…
The Israel Defense Forces said their army doesn’t launch stun grenades or tear gas into Palestinian schools, but after a video surfaced it altered its response, blaming “the wind.”
Israel used live fire as a first resort when a Palestinian male nurse lost control of his car near a checkpoint, mildly injuring 3 IDF soldiers.
In the course of just 4 days, Israeli soldiers managed to attack and traumatize scores of school children, as well as adults who were there to serve the children. Mainstream media does not report on these incidents because they don’t match the narrative of benign occupation and Palestinians as terrorists.
Recently released Israeli documents show that Israel secretly funded an insurance company for settlers, in addition to planning for 20,000 new units in Ma’ale Adumim worth 3 billion shekels (over $800 million), an East Jerusalem settlement built on confiscated Palestinian land.
In addition, settlement activity in Hebron continues, and Israel is trying to have international human rights observers removed.
Other troubling new governmental actions and policies have also been adopted.
Israeli soldiers and settlers terrorize Palestinians every day. Stories from November 4-5 (that won’t appear in mainstream media) include 2 Palestinian deaths, at least 14 abductions – some of them children, a settler free-for-all in Hebron, and an injured infant.
Jonathan Cook reports on Israeli soldiers breaking the silence on what they’ve done. “Whatever a soldier believes when they begin their military service, there is no way to behave ethically in the occupied territories,” Ido Even-Paz, a former Israeli soldier says. “It’s a system in which Palestinians are always treated as inferior… Every day the job is to inflict collective punishment…”