Settler violence in the Palestinian West Bank: Said Awwad has filed three trespassing complaints this year, but the police asked him to ‘bring proof.’ When he tried to take a picture of men intruding on his land – settlers he knew by name from the nearby outpost – they attacked him, his wife and their children ages 1 to 15.
The unprecedented number and intensity of Israeli settler attacks – often with the complicity of the Israeli military – during the past few months are raising fears that the situation may escalate out of control.
The monthly average of Palestinian structures targeted by Israel for demolition has increased by 65 percent this year compared to 2020.
For those who think Palestine is in a time of “calm” because there are no headlines, think again. Palestinians haven’t experienced calm in decades.
Here is a sampling of headlines from the last week, as meticulously reported by our friends at the International Middle East Media Center.
Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, interrogated a field researcher for rights group B’Tselem who they said was always around during Palestinian activity, and has been “making trouble and threatening the army.”
His troublemaking includes reporting on an unarmed Palestinian who was shot in the neck and paralyzed.
Extremist Jewish supremacist parties find themselves suddenly relevant as Netanyahu’s Likud party seeks to form alliances and win enough legislative seats to protect him from legal action. Lieberman has even called for “disloyal” Palestinian citizens to be “beheaded.” It may be the beginning of a new level of rightwing governing.
A new report from Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq details the numerous human rights violations that Israel perpetrated against Palestinians in 2020 — in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
New report from UK charity War on Want shows how integral Israel’s military court system is in controlling Palestinian lives. The system is apartheid in nature and violates international law.
Masafer Yatta lies in a remote area of the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers are routinely, ruthlessly demolishing Palestinian homes – and preventing activists from filming their illegal actions. Thousands of demolition orders have been served here, but residents refuse to leave their ancestral lands.
Activist Sami Huraini, 23, is one of the coordinators of a West Bank youth group engaged in weekly demonstrations. His family history of nonviolent protest has yielded some unlikely victories.