Armed Settler Militia Terrorizes Ibziq, Assaults ISM Volunteers
International Solidarity Movement | August 18, 2025
On the night of August 11th, two ISM volunteers were assaulted, beaten, and robbed by a mob of at least eight armed settlers dressed in full military-style uniforms in the rural shepherding village of Ibziq. The volunteers were engaged in protective presence, which includes documenting illegal intrusions into Palestinian communities and recording and opposing intimidation, threats, and attacks led by Zionist militias against Palestinians across the Jordan Valley.
The settler militia entered the remote village around 7PM in dune buggy-style military vehicles, wearing helmets and balaclavas, and carrying assault rifles. The militia canvassed the village for over an hour, trespassing into community school grounds and upon critical water infrastructure before moving on to block Palestinian traffic and terrorize local residents with threats of arson and theft.
When the settler militia directly entered a Palestinian family’s home, the ISM volunteers—both U.S. citizens, one residing in Jerusalem and the other in Liverpool, UK—intervened by approaching the settlers and stating the militia were illegally encroaching upon Palestinian lands, violating the human rights of Palestinians, and contravening international law.
Although the volunteers had their hands up to indicate that they were unarmed and nonviolent, the militia members pinned one ISM volunteer to the ground and he was repeatedly beaten. Amidst the thrashing, settlers also kicked sand and dirt into the volunteer’s face and eyes multiple times. When the second volunteer began filming, several members of the settler militia turned their rifles on him.
The ISM volunteer recording was held at gunpoint, ordered to his knees, and told he would be shot if he did not obey commands. The militia deliberately aimed laser targeting sights at the volunteer’s genitals, before physically forcing him to the ground and wrenching his arm wrenched behind his back. While held at gunpoint, he was elbowed in the back of the head after his phone was stolen.
Before leaving, the settler militia issued a final direct threat to the Palestinian family, shouting that the village would be attacked and burned down if they did not leave. According to one member of the family, the settlers “threatened to burn us alive.” Both volunteers were evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance and treated at a nearby hospital in Tubas. Each were later released in stable condition and subsequently returned to Ibziq to resume on-the-ground protective presence with ISM.
According to the local community, the attack was perpetrated by a settler militia rather than active-duty military. However, these settler militias operate alongside and as part of the army, particularly when settlers are in uniform wielding the power and mandate of the state. In Ibziq, the active duty military has also collaborated with settlers on a number of attacks over the last month.
Notably, this assault is part of a broader wave of settler colonial violence and militia aggression sweeping across the occupied West Bank. At present, Palestinian and Bedouin communities are being systematically harassed, attacked, arrested, displaced, and murdered. Settler militia operatives are operating with the full knowledge—and support and protection—of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Zionist apartheid regime. In many cases, including this one, settler militia are both afforded impunity and indistinguishable from official IOF soldiers and army units. They are given military vehicles, surveillance equipment, and weapons to collectively intimidate, terrorize, and dispossess Palestinian communities.
Markedly, this is neither an isolated case nor a recent phenomena. The occupied West Bank is however seeing a sharp escalation in racialized hostilities and frontier violence, where armed settlers, emboldened by Israeli policy and army support, are carrying out coordinated attacks on Palestinian life and land. Bedouin communities in particular face systemic racism, militarized demolitions, nighttime raids, and arson attacks, which are all part of a settler colonial project aimed at annexation and the elimination of Palestinian heritage, history, and presence.
ISM calls on international media, human rights organizations, and members of civil society to publicly denounce and take concrete action against the violence and crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli apartheid regime. The settler militia attack in Ibziq is but one of countless examples of how Palestinian civilians and entire villages continue to be subjected to an illegal occupation, systemic terror, compounding trauma, and an intensifying colonial war that is being waged by the Zionist movement.
Zionism without borders: Annexation and normalization as tools of Arab subjugation
By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | August 1, 2025
Four weeks after Israel signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain on 15 September 2020, Tel Aviv’s Higher Planning Council approved 4,948 new settler units in the occupied West Bank. No public fanfare.
No tanks rolled in – just signatures authorizing another layer of occupation. The first wave of expansion advanced quietly, legitimized by the language of “peace.”
This sequencing deliberately reflects the core logic of Zionist expansion: Normalize when the region submits, colonize when the world blinks.
Where possible, the occupation state’s army conquers land directly. Where resistance or scrutiny makes that unfeasible, the occupation government builds a web of security pacts, trade routes, and intelligence partnerships that extend its reach without a single uniformed soldier. This dual formula, territorial conquest and hegemonic integration, has underpinned Israeli strategy since 1967, and today stretches unimpeded from the Jordan Valley to the Atlantic coast.
Two paths, one destination
“Greater Israel” represents the settler-colonial ambition to annex, settle, and absorb land across historic Palestine and beyond. It is rooted in the Zionist vision of Jewish dominion over the so-called “biblical Land of Israel.” In contrast, “Great Israel” describes the imperial design to dominate the surrounding region through proxies, economic leverage, and security alignments.
Where occupation is costly, Tel Aviv turns to influence. Through deals, destabilization, or coercion, it reshapes the sovereignty of its neighbors. Greater Israel devours land. Great Israel neutralizes independence. Together, they are one project.
Zionist literature makes this plain. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, demanded sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan – “Greater Israel on both sides of the Jordan River” – and rejected compromise with Arabs. In The Iron Wall (1923), he declared that only an unyielding Jewish force could compel Arab acquiescence:
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population.”
The occupation state’s first prime minister and Labor Zionist leader, David Ben-Gurion, publicly accepted a partition plan in 1937, but privately described it as “not the end but the beginning.” In a letter to his son, he wrote that a Jewish state on part of the land would strengthen the Zionist project and serve as a platform to “redeem the entire country.” In a June 1938 meeting of the Jewish Agency executive, he said:
“After the formation of a large army … we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
Early Zionist leaders did not view borders as final, but as phases. During its first two decades, Israel lacked the military strength or western backing to expand beyond its 1949 borders. Direct confrontation with Arab states risked catastrophe. Instead, Tel Aviv pioneered a subtler doctrine of peripheral infiltration.
Through the “periphery doctrine,” it cultivated covert ties with non-Arab states and oppressed minorities – Shah-era Iran, Turkiye, Kurdish groups in Iraq, and Christian separatists in Sudan. This strategy sowed chaos among Israel’s Arab rivals while embedding Israeli influence in strategic corners of West Asia and Africa. Most recently, the occupation state has made overtures to Druze communities in southern Syria, seeking to replicate this strategy amid renewed instability.
The corridor to colonization
Israel’s integration into the Arab world is now deeper than ever before. Through normalization, Tel Aviv has converted former enemies into partners economically, diplomatically, and militarily. While Egypt and Jordan first formalized ties through Camp David and Wadi Araba, it was the Abraham Accords that opened the floodgates. What followed was a deluge of tech deals, weapons transfers, and commercial partnerships linking the occupation state to the Persian Gulf.
By 2023, Israel’s trade with the UAE had reached $3 billion annually. That figure rose by 11 percent the following year, even as Israel waged genocide in Gaza. Israeli Consul General Liron Zaslansky described trade relations between Abu Dhabi and Israel as “growing, so that we ended 2024 at $3.24 billion, excluding software and services.”
In 2022, Morocco purchased $500 million worth of Israeli Barak MX air defense systems. Rabat also partnered with BlueBird, an Israeli drone firm, to become the first UAV manufacturer in West Asia and North Africa.
This has created a “corridor of influence” that grants Tel Aviv access to new markets, air and sea routes, and intelligence spaces stretching from Casablanca to Khor Fakkan.
On the ground, the war continues
While trade flourishes, colonization accelerates. In 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government approved 12,855 settler homes – a record for any six-month period. More than 700,000 settlers now occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That figure has grown sevenfold since the early 1990s.
In May 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed cabinet approval for the construction of 22 new West Bank settlements, including multiple previously unauthorized outposts. Katz framed the move as necessary to “strengthen our hold on Judea and Samaria” and to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
These settlements are not arbitrary. They are connected by Jewish-only bypass roads, fortified by the occupation army, and strategically designed to fragment the occupied West Bank into isolated Palestinian enclaves. This is de facto annexation, defined by a matrix of irreversible facts that eliminates the territorial basis for any future Palestinian state, while avoiding the international fallout of formal annexation.
The “logic” of expansion has also spilled beyond Palestine. In Syria, Tel Aviv now occupies 250 square kilometers across Quneitra, Rural Damascus, and Deraa – territory seized during the collapse of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government by Al-Qaeda rooted terrorists – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – who now occupy the seat of power in Damascus. HTS was under the leadership of former ISIS chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Upon ousting Assad, Julani began using his government name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and became the de facto president of Syria.
In Lebanon, Israeli forces maintain a presence over 30–40 square kilometers, including Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba Hills, and the northern half of Ghajar. Additional outposts and buffer zones stretch along the so-called Blue Line.
Occupation rebranded
Israel’s expansion today is no longer confined to bulldozers and soldiers; it is mediated through trade, tech, and treaties. But make no mistake: normalization has not replaced occupation. It has enabled and accelerated it.
Every Emirati deal, every Moroccan drone line, every Bahraini handshake fuels Tel Aviv’s capacity to deepen its military presence and Judaize more land. Plans are underway to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights and to deploy armored units along the demilitarized zone.
The ripple effects are already destabilizing the region. Egypt has begun constructing a concrete wall on its border with Gaza to prepare for mass displacement or military spillover. Jordan faces existential peril in the Jordan Valley, where settler expansion is displacing Bedouin communities and draining natural aquifers. Syria and Lebanon remain hemmed in by fortified Israeli positions, with both countries facing increasing pressure from Washington to normalize relations.
Greater Israel devours Arab land. Great Israel colonizes Arab decision-making. One swallows borders. The other swallows sovereignty.
Beyond Gaza’s shadow: The unseen war for the West Bank’s future
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 24, 2025
Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the occupied West Bank. The latest such provocations consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron (Al-Khalil) municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it granted these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body.
Though all Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank.
Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshipers kneeling for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, where the Israeli army brutally cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians.
Yet, the Israeli Shamgar Commission, tasked with investigating the massacre, resolved in 1994 that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, was to be grotesquely divided: 63 per cent allocated to Jewish worshipers and a mere 37 per cent to Palestinian Muslims.
Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, solely for exclusive settler use.
The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as “historic and unprecedented,” is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly into the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety.
But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements.
Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressures and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the 7 October 2023, assault nor the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures.
In the first year of the war, over 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted Israeli military campaigns.
Israel’s overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions, and the cruel suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli work market for survival.
This insidious plan also explicitly targeted all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there.
In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of confronting the “broader Iran terror axis.” Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza. By mid-July 2025, over 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, while at least 15 were murdered by settlers.
As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralised strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement constructions and the brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards.
Israel’s actions in the West Bank were not a sudden deviation but consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme. This includes a plan solidified by the Israeli Knesset in 2020 that allowed Israel to officially annex the West Bank. Israel’s ultimate goal has always been to confine the majority of Palestinians into Bantustan-like enclaves, while asserting full control over the vast majority of the region.
In August 2023, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir articulated this sinister vision: “My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank) is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs.”
More coercive measures swiftly followed, including Knesset laws to significantly curtail UNRWA operations, and further legislation to entrench de facto annexation. Last May, Smotrich audaciously announced 22 more settlements. On 2 July 14 Israeli ministers made a public call on Netanyahu to immediately annex the West Bank.
In fact, every action Israel has undertaken, especially since the commencement of its devastating genocide in Gaza, has been carefully calculated to culminate in the irreversible annexation of the West Bank – a process that would inevitably be followed by declaring native inhabitants persona non grata in their own homeland.
This level of systemic pressure and oppression will ultimately lead to a popular explosion. Though suppressed by the brutality of the Israeli army, the terror of armed settlers, and the suppressive actions of the Palestinian Authority, the breaking point is fast approaching.
Those in the West who preach hollow calls for calm and de-escalation must understand the region is hurtling towards the brink. Neither diplomatic platitudes nor sterile press releases will suffice to avert the catastrophe. They are advised to act decisively against Israel’s destructive policies, and they must act immediately.
Settlers assault Palestinian woman in Al-Khalil, destroy vital water line in Nablus
Palestinian Information Center – July 10, 2025
A Palestinian woman was injured Thursday morning after a group of armed Israeli settlers attacked residents in the Tabyan and Fakhit areas of Masafar Yatta, south of Al-Khalil in the southern occupied West Bank. Local sources confirmed the settlers assaulted multiple residents, leaving the woman wounded.
In a separate but related act of sabotage, settlers used a bulldozer at dawn Thursday to destroy a critical water pipeline between the villages of Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadel, south of Nablus. The pipeline served at least seven surrounding villages, including Jorish, Qusra, Qaryut, Jalud, Duma, Talfit, and Majdal Bani Fadel. The destruction of this essential infrastructure deepens the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian communities already under siege.
Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) began bulldozing large sections of privately owned Palestinian land in the town of Teqou’, southeast of Bethlehem, to construct a new settlement road. Accompanied by heavy machinery, the IOF targeted lands belonging to the Al-Asakira, Al-Zeer, and Jibrin families in the Qanan Saqir and Fasoura areas.
Local residents fear the road project will lead to the seizure of thousands of dunums under the pretext of “securing the road,” reinforcing a broader Israeli policy of annexation and Judaization.
The town of Teqou’ is already subject to movement restrictions imposed by seven iron gates placed at its entrances and within neighborhoods, effectively isolating large parts of the town and limiting access to nearby villages.
Daily settler attacks continue across the West Bank, with the clear aim of forcibly displacing Palestinians and expanding illegal settlement infrastructure. Since the onset of the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, settler groups have carried out more than 5,000 attacks and established 80 new outposts on Palestinian land in the West Bank.
These acts of aggression are part of a wider, systemic campaign of ethnic cleansing and land theft, carried out in parallel with the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Israeli Settlers Attack One of the Oldest Christian Churches in Palestine
By James Rushmore | The Libertarian Institute | July 9, 2025
Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank town of Taybeh on Monday, causing extensive damage to a fifth-century church and a cemetery. The vandals started a series of fires near the ancient Church of Saint George, one of the oldest Christian churches in Palestine. Local residents were able to extinguish the fires. The attack marks the latest effort by Israeli settlers to intimidate the Palestinian inhabitants of Taybeh, which is the only remaining village in the territory with an exclusively Christian population.
The attack prompted three local priests to issue a statement. Fathers Daoud Khoury, Jack-Noble Abed, and Bashar Fawadleh called upon “local and international actors” to launch an investigation into the settler attacks, put pressure on Israeli authorities, and send delegations directly to Taybeh. They also urged people to provide the villagers with economic and legal assistance. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor who was interviewed by Tucker Carlson in April 2024, shared the priests’ appeal on X. He also criticized U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist, for pursuing policies that enable settler violence in the West Bank.
Huckabee toured the West Bank last week. During his visit, he expressed his support for the settler movement and referred to the territory as “Judea and Samaria,” saying that it would be “a historical injustice and a denial of the Bible” to use any other terminology. He also said that the settlers “represent God’s presence and His choice of this land.”
Huckabee’s trip came days after every Likud minister in the Israeli government sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter urging him to annex the West Bank before the end of the Knesset’s summer session on July 27. The letter argues that the “strategic partnership, backing, and support of the U.S. and President Donald Trump have made it a propitious time to move forward with [the annexation] now, and ensure Israel’s security for generations.” It also said that a Palestinian state would represent an “existential danger to Israel.”
The attacks mark the latest assault on Taybeh. In June, settlers built an outpost on the eastern edge of the village, atop a key agricultural zone that’s home to thousands of Palestinian olive trees. Local farmers were denied access to the area, and settlers attacked residents who tried to enter the zone. The Israeli settlers have also been allowing their livestock to graze on Palestinian farmlands as part of an effort to push the villagers out.
At least 1,000 Palestinians, including over 200 children, have been killed in the West Bank since Israel began its genocide in the Gaza Strip. In addition to raiding refugee camps and displacing thousands of native civilians, IDF forces have provided settlers with semi-automatic weapons. In 2024, Israel seized control of more Palestinian land in the West Bank than in the previous 20 years combined.
Israeli settlers escalate violence, forced displacement across occupied West Bank
Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images
The Cradle | May 25, 2025
The last few days have witnessed a dangerous escalation of violence, theft, and vandalism against Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Settlers attacked Palestinians in the Al-Auja Waterfall area in Jericho on 25 May for the third time in one day, as part of ongoing efforts to displace families who have lived in the area for decades and establish a new illegal settlement outpost.
This came a day after settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army, cut off the water supply to the area.
In the Salim plain east of the occupied city of Nablus, settlers also continued to set fire to wheat fields on Sunday, coinciding with separate attacks on Palestinian livestock herders in the northern Jordan Valley area.
On Saturday, at least 40 dunams of wheat fields in the village of Sebastia near Nablus were set ablaze by illegal settlers.
“The colonists came from the Shavei Shomron settlement and a newly established outpost in the area. The arson targeted farmland in the village’s plain, destroying crops owned by local Palestinian residents,” Mohammad Azem, head of the Sebastia municipality, told WAFA news agency on 24 May.
Large amounts of crops were totally destroyed, decimating the livelihoods of the local Palestinian landowners.
At least 70 olive trees belonging to a Palestinian farmer in Hebron were uprooted by settlers on the same day.
The attacks on Saturday came as Israeli occupation troops carried out a large-scale arrest campaign across the West Bank.
Last week, around 150 Palestinians were forced by settlers to leave the village of Mughayyir al-Deir east of Ramallah, following the establishment of a new illegal outpost there and five days of attacks and intimidation.
Settlers harassed Palestinian men while they were dismantling the metal and wooden frameworks of their houses and preparing to evacuate. One of the attackers was Elisha Yered, a member of the extremist Hilltop Youth group who is subject to UK and EU sanctions for numerous crimes against Palestinians.
“This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken,” he boasted.
Just four days ago, settlers under army protection attacked Palestinians and set fire to homes and vehicles in the town of Bruqin in the northern West Bank. Bruqin and the nearby village of Kafr al-Dik have been under a tight army siege and continuous attacks since the killing of a settler in a shooting on a settlement in the area earlier this month.
Illegal land grabs and expansion of settlements have continued brazenly by the Israeli government, in stark violation of international law.
The UN Human Rights Office noted in a report in March that there has been a significant expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territory, citing reports from Israeli NGOs indicating that tens of thousands of new housing units are scheduled to be built in new or existing settlements.
Since the start of this year, Israeli occupation forces have been been carrying out a deadly military operation and siege against several West Bank cities. The operation began on 21 January and was dubbed Iron Wall.
According to the UN, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, as Israel continues to systematically demolish Palestinian houses in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem.
Israel says army to stay ‘for next year’ in Palestinian refugee camp in occupied West Bank
MEMO | February 23, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that the army will remain in Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank for the next year to prevent Palestinian residents from returning, Anadolu reports.
The Israeli army deployed tanks in the northern West Bank early Sunday, marking the first time since 2002 amid military escalation in the occupied territory.
“The Israeli army is expanding its operations in the northern West Bank, and starting tonight, it will also operate in the town of Qabatiya,” Katz said in a statement.
The defense minister said 40,000 Palestinians have been evacuated from Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps.
“UNRWA activity in the camps has also been stopped,” he said. “I instructed the IDF (army) to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared, for the coming year, and not allow residents to return.”
The army has been conducting military operations in the northern West Bank since last month, killing at least 60 people and displacing thousands.
The raids were the latest in Israel’s ongoing military escalation in the West Bank where at least 923 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught against the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The International Court of Justice declared in July that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, demanding the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel forcibly removes students and shuts down UNRWA school in occupied Jerusalem
MEMO | February 18, 2025
The Israeli authorities have forcibly removed students and shut down a school run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in occupied Jerusalem, Wafa news agency has reported.
The Jerusalem governorate reported that Israeli occupation forces stormed the UNRWA-affiliated Jerusalem Boys’ Elementary School in Wadi Al-Joz district, and ordered staff to close the institution after forcibly removing students.
The move follows an order by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enforce the ban on UNRWA operations in the city. Under the new restrictions, UNRWA activity within “areas under Israeli sovereignty” is now prohibited, including the operation of representative offices and providing services. Israelis are also prohibited from having any contact with the agency. Jerusalem was annexed by the occupation state in the 1980s, in a move which is not recognised by the majority of countries as annexation of territory acquired by force of arms is illegal under international law.
In May 2024, the UNRWA management was forced to close the headquarters under the pressure of attacks by illegal settlers, which reached the point of its buildings being set on fire twice in one week. The Israel Lands Authority announced on 10 October last year the seizure of the land on which the UNRWA headquarters is located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, and the transformation of the site into an illegal settlement outpost containing 1,440 housing units. All of Israel’s settlements and the settlers who live on them are illegal under international law.
The occupation regime also targeted the UNRWA Kalandia Training Centre (KTC), with the Israel Lands Authority issuing a decision on 14 January 2024 demanding that UNRWA vacate it and pay retrospective occupancy fees of 17 million shekels (about $4.76 million), on the pretext of constructing and using buildings without a permit.
UNRWA provides essential services, including humanitarian aid, healthcare and education, to more than 110,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem alone. The UN agency operates two refugee camps, Shuafat and Kalandia, in the occupied city.
Smotrich orders seizure of $90m in Palestinian funds to benefit Israeli settlers
The Cradle | February 18, 2025
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed an order on 17 February to seize NIS 320 million ($90 million) in Palestinian tax funds to use as compensation for families of Israelis affected by the war.
“There is no more moral and just signature than to prevent the Palestinian Authority from funding terrorism and to garnish its funds for the benefit of the families of terror victims. This is a necessary step in our national struggle against terrorism and against the Palestinian Authority that encourages it,” Smotrich stated.
In August, the finance minister confiscated NIS 100 million (nearly $27 million) from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, accusing it of supporting “terrorism.”
Israel’s security cabinet was set to meet on Monday to discuss whether to move forward with negotiations on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire.
If agreed to, the second phase is intended to see Hamas release dozens of remaining captives from Gaza, while Israel would release hundreds more Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw entirely from Gaza, and a lasting truce should go into effect.
However, Smotrich and other Jewish supremacist ministers have said they would quit Netanyahu’s ruling coalition if the war does not resume.
On Saturday, the Israeli finance minister announced that US President Donald Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza will start within weeks, with the displacement starting slowly but accelerating with time.
“Preparations have started amongst our teams, alongside teams of the US President Donald Trump,” Smotrich told reporters, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
He explained that the plan involves two parts. “One is to find countries that can receive people, and two, it’s a huge logistical operation to take such a large number of people out of here.”
Palestinians in Gaza have rejected Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse them from their homes and lands, while rights groups have said that the plan is illegal under international law.
Kushner’s Saudi-backed fund doubles stake in firm financing illegal West Bank settlements
The Cradle | January 17, 2025
Affinity Partners, the Saudi-funded hedge firm of President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, received approval from Israeli regulators to double its stake in Phoenix Financial Ltd., which funds the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Bloomberg reported on 17 January that Affinity could buy an additional 4.95 percent stake in the financial services firm at 37.5 shekels ($10.3) a share.
Phoenix’s share price has surged over 50 percent to around 58.5 shekels apiece since mid-July, when Kushner’s Miami-based firm announced the $128.5 million deal to buy its initial 4.95 percent stake, Bloomberg noted.
Kushner has held up the deal as a sign of his company’s confidence in the war-racked country’s economy.
“Investing in Phoenix in July 2024 was a decision rooted in my belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business,” Kushner said in a statement to Bloomberg.” Six months later, the increased value of our shares, reaffirms my conviction – both in Israel’s strength and the growing promise of Phoenix.”
Kushner founded Affinity, which has other investments in Israel, including a stake in S Shlomo Holdings’s car and credit division, with $2 billion in Saudi funding after leaving his role as senior White House advisor during the first Trump administration.
Kushner established a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) while serving in the White House.
Kushner is the son-in-law of US President-elect Donald Trump and served as his senior White House advisor in his first term. Kushner played a pivotal role in the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and some Arab nations in 2020. Trump is now expected to try bringing Saudi Arabia into the accords.
In addition to receiving backing from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Kushner raised an additional $1.5 billion from the Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based Lunate, bringing its assets under management to $4.6 billion.
Pheonix Financial has financed and insured construction projects throughout Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.
According to the NGO watchdog Who Profits, Phoenix owns an 80 percent stake in a large shopping mall in an illegal East Jerusalem settlement and stakes in various companies operating throughout other settlements.
Phoenix has also helped finance wind and solar projects in illegal Israeli settlements and provided financial services to the local councils of settlements, including the Beitar Illit and Oranit settlements in the West Bank.
Kushner’s investment in Pheonix comes just days before Trump is set to take office once again.
Israeli settler leaders celebrated Trump’s election and anticipate permitting them to annex the West Bank and greatly expand building settlements for Israeli Jews there.
The Israeli government is also seeking to expand the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
In December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced it would invest more than $11 million to “encourage demographic growth” in the Golan, which Israeli forces first occupied in 1967.
Israel moved to expand its illegal occupation of Syrian territory in the Golan immediately after the Syrian government, led by president Bashar al-Assad, was toppled by militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate, on 8 December.
Israel seizes UNRWA headquarters’ land in Occupied Jerusalem
Palestinian Information Center – October 10, 2024
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel has confiscated UNRWA’s headquarters land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Occupied Jerusalem with the aim to build 1,440 illegal settlement units on the site.
The announcement comes a day after members of the United Nations Security Council warned Israel against proceeding with a law aimed at curbing UNRWA’s ability to operate.
Earlier Sunday, the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved two bills that effectively aim at ending UNRWA’s activity and privileges in Israel.
The move came as part of the Israeli systematic targeting of UNRWA in the occupied territories.
Last January, a number of countries suspended financing for the agency after Israel accused 12 of the 30,000 UNRWA employees of participating in the 7 October attack.
Most resumed funding, however, after a UN report found that Israeli authorities had not provided “any supporting evidence” to back up allegations of UNRWA staff links to the attack.
Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Japan were among the countries to restore funding to UNRWA following the report.
Israeli occupation forces attack Palestinian family, arrest foreign activists in al-Khalil
Palestinian Information Center – September 29, 2024
WEST BANK – The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) assaulted a Palestinian family and arrested foreign peace activists in Masafer Yatta, south of al-Khalil, in the southern West Bank on Sunday.
Activist Osama Makhamreh reported that the IOF stormed Al-Tuwani village in Masafer Yatta, and assaulted the Al-Harini family.
He added that the IOF arrested foreign peace activists after preventing them from filming and documenting settlers’ violations and attacks against local citizens.
In August 2024, the Israeli army and settlers carried out 1,228 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank.
These attacks included field executions, armed attacks on Palestinian villages, vandalism, bulldozing of land, uprooting of trees, property confiscation, movement restrictions, and the erection of military checkpoints.
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Mossad behind Italian ‘blackmail’ spying scandal
The Cradle | November 1, 2024
An Italian private intelligence firm that allegedly hacked government databases to collect information on thousands of prominent people, including politicians, entrepreneurs, and celebrities, is accused of working for Israeli intelligence and the Vatican, media reported on 30 October.
Police wiretaps leaked to Italian media show that Equalize, which employs former members of Italian intelligence, is accused of breaching the servers of government ministries and the police between 2019 and 2024 to collect information.
Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Equalize allegedly collected numerous classified files that contain sensitive information about prominent Italians to sell to clients – including major companies and law firms seeking information to gain an advantage over competitors, win court cases, or for blackmail and extortion.
Prime Minister Meloni described the alleged scheme as “unacceptable” and “a threat to democracy.” … continue
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