Hebron, Occupied Palestine – This morning at Qurtuba school in al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli soldiers harassed school-children, teachers and adults trying to pass the nearby checkpoint.
The stairs leading to Qurtuba school, the scene of a heinous murder of a Palestinian youth by Israeli forces three days ago, are directly opposite a checkpoint dividing segregated Shuhada Street into a small strip where Palestinian residents are allowed to walk and the former main Palestinian market now completely closed for Palestinians and only allowed for settlers. The school has, due to its proximity to the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah been a flashpoint of settler attacks and violence against Palestinians and internationals.
As teachers, school-children and parents are equally scared with violence rising and 19 Palestinian youth shot to death in the last two weeks, all the school-children are now gathering in one place in order to walk to school together. Parents living there were watching out for the children, telling them to move away from the street as soon as they could hear a car in the distance, afraid settlers would run them over if the children didn’t move fast enough. This has happened in the past and settlers continuously try to hit children with their car.
Soldiers at the checkpoint denied one Palestinian adult around 30 years old to walk down the stairs. The soldiers stopped him and didn’t even ask for his ID, but ordered him to go back up the stairs and walk around. A group of female teachers and girls were ordered to stop in front of the stairs and made to wait for about 5 minutes. Again, soldiers did not demand any ID or to check bags, and finally allowed the group to pass and go to school after about five minutes.
All of this comes at a time, where the whole neighbourhood has been declared a ‘closed military zone’ by the Israeli forces, further infringing on the already restricted movement of Palestinians – while settlers from the illegal settlements are allowed to roam the streets freely.
This illustrates the daily harassment Palestinian children and teachers have to face on their way to and from school – a clear infringement on the basic right to education. But this does not only ring true for school-time, harassment and intimidation by soldiers and settlers are increasingly becoming an integral part of day to day life for Palestinians.
NABLUS – Israeli settlers on Saturday prevented Palestinian farmers from accessing their olive fields on the outskirts of Burin village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, locals said.
Local sources told Ma’an that dozens of settlers blocked entrance of farmers to their land while Israeli soldiers stopped two buses carrying volunteers en route to assist Palestinians in the olive harvest.
The buses were stopped on the main road between Nablus and the illegal settlement Yitzhar.
The Palestinians and volunteers were stopped “despite coordination between the Palestinian liaison department and its Israeli counterpart,” locals said.
Locals added that Israeli settlers also stole olives and farming equipment from Palestinians in the Bab Sanna area of Burin, which is completely surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements to the north and west.
Settlers in the Nablus area — known by locals to be more extreme and violent — frequently prevent Palestinian access to their farmland, much of which lies under Israeli control in Area C.
Earlier this week, settlers from Elon Moreh threw rocks at farmers in the Azmut and Deir al-Hatab areas east of Nablus.
The week prior, settlers from the Yitzhar settlement threw stones at locals picking olives in Burin, injuring four Palestinians. Dozens of acres of Palestinian agricultural land was also burned.
Such attacks are regularly carried out in the presence of Israeli military who rarely act to protect Palestinians.
Palestinian leadership has repeatedly requested the UN Security Council to intervene in order to stop aggression by settlers as well as the implementation of a measure to disarm settlers.
Settler violence during the olive harvest has historically taken a heavy toll on the thousands of Palestinian families whose annual living depends on access to their land.
Today in The New York Times we have a look at Hebron, a blood-drenched city in the West Bank, a community besieged by violent settlers and trigger-happy Israeli forces. In this month alone, some 20 of its Palestinian residents have died at the hands of soldiers and police, their deaths sometimes caught on video that belies official accounts.
But this grim reality is not the focus in the Times. The article by Diaa Hadid and Rami Nazzal strips the full context of the occupation from Hebron and presents it, not as a city struggling to survive under crushing oppression, but as a hotbed of Palestinian radicals, a stronghold of the oft-demonized Hamas.
The story takes us to the funeral of Dania Irsheid (identified as Dania al-Husseini in the Times), a schoolgirl shot at a checkpoint on Sunday. It mentions other deaths in recent days, but it completely avoids the eyewitness accounts and human rights organization findings that show many of these deaths were extrajudicial executions.
Israel has callously refused to release the bodies of most of the 20 victims, and we read that residents feel “particular outrage” over the death of Dania and another girl, Bayan Oseili, 16, killed a week before, both accused of stabbing attacks. The story deftly avoids another compelling reason for this outrage: the fact that both obviously posed no threat and could have been arrested and that video footage in the case of Bayan and eyewitness accounts in the case of Irsheid contradict police claims.
Hadid and Nazzal, however, have nothing to say about these contradictions and write that residents are angry because the refusal to release the bodies is an “affront to the Muslim tradition of immediate burial and a defilement of their honor.”
This fits neatly into the Times’ attempt to spin the oppression in Hebron into more blaming of the victims, who are described as Hamas followers and culturally conservative. The article opens with a quote from a Hebron resident who applauds knife attacks on Israeli soldiers, and it closes with the same speaker who “was pleased to see the surge in violence turn to Hebron.”
Missing entirely are any comments from nonviolent Hebron activists and the accounts of eyewitnesses who say Israeli forces have planted knives near the bodies of victims. The story also omits some chilling reports of deliberate executions and the statements of human rights groups that raise the charge of extrajudicial killings.
One of the most disturbing accounts describes the death of a young man, Islam Ibeidu, 23, on Wednesday near the Kirya Arba settlement. The news outlet Middle East Eyenoted, “According to the quoted eyewitness, Ibeidu was searched by Israeli soldiers by the checkpoint and released, before orders were given to execute him.”
One witness tweeted: “I saw everything. I saw soldiers loading the guns. He had his arms up and was shaking, he was unarmed and they just shot him.” A second tweet continues, “eyewitness overheard police woman say ‘he looks nice, shoot him’ before he was shot to death by m16 from 2 meters away.”
The accounts of other deaths are equally disturbing (see TimesWarp 10-27-15), but the Times story includes none of them. It states that the victims this month died “in demonstrations and attacks,” taking the official Israeli line as fact.
On the other hand, the article refers frequently to Hamas in an effort to tie the group to the violence in Hebron. It makes no mention of several non-violent groups active in the city, such as Youth Against Settlements, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International Solidarity Movement and the UN mandated Temporary International Presence in Hebron.
All of these organizations are avowedly non-violent; they observe and document violence against Palestinians. Yet another group, Breaking the Silence, was founded by Israeli soldiers who had served in Hebron and now collect and document Israeli army abuses. None of these organizations has a voice in the Times story.
Much of Hebron’s agony dates back to March, 1994, when an American-born settler, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 worshippers in the Ibahimi Mosque. Hadid mentions this as part of the historical record but omits the brutal Israeli crackdown that followed.
Rather than act to protect Palestinians after this attack, Israeli security forces went on to kill some 20 more Hebron residents during protests and to lock them down under a round-the-clock curfew. The government also closed once bustling Shuhada Street to all Palestinian traffic, welded shut Palestinian shops, turned the street over to settlers and divided the mosque into Jewish and Muslim sections.
This finds no clarification in the Times story, which refers vaguely to a “volatile mix of Palestinians and Jewish settlers.” Instead, the newspaper has adopted the official playbook of the occupiers: Stick to the narrative of Israeli victimhood, ignore countervailing fact, and whenever possible blame Hamas.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported, Thursday, that Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, the second Palestinian to be killed in the city in less than three hours.
The Ministry said the slain Palestinian has been identified as Farouq Abdul-Qader Seder, 19 years of age.
He was shot dead in the Shuhada Street, close to the Beit Hadassah illegal Israeli colonialist outpost, in the heart of Hebron city.
The Israeli army claimed the Palestinian “carried a knife, and attempted to stab a soldier,” a claim that was strongly denied by eyewitnesses.
Eyewitnesses also said Israeli soldiers, and extremist colonizers attacked the dead body of the slain Palestinian, and opened fire on the home of resident Hajj Mofeed Sharabati.
The army claims several Palestinian activists, of the Independent Human Rights Committee and Youth Coalition against Settlements, “were hiding in the Sharabati home.”
Farid al-Atrash, head of the Independent Committee for Human Rights in the southern part of the West Bank, said the soldiers attacked him and many Palestinians who were with him when they rushed to the scene, where the Palestinian was killed, after hearing gunshots.
“The soldiers attacked us, and we ran to the home of Mofeed Sharabati,” he stated, “The soldiers and fanatic settlers followed us, and attacked us in his home.”
“We are here, and will remain here; we document the Israeli violations; we defend the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to live in peace and dignity,” he added, “The soldiers also fired a gas bomb targeting the Sharabati home, and surrounded it.”
Also Thursday, soldiers shot and killed Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Mohtasib, 23 years of age, near the Ibrahimi Mosque, in Hebron.
The latest fatal shootings on Thursday bring the number of Palestinians, killed by Israeli army fire in occupied Palestine since the beginning of this month to 68, including 14 children.
49 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, 17 in the Gaza Strip, including a mother and her two years of age child, and one in the Negev, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The Ministry added that at least 914 have been shot by live Israeli army fire, while 878 were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets.
It also said that 206 Palestinians suffered fractures and bruises after being beaten by Israeli soldiers and extremist settlers, 14 suffered burns due to Israeli gas bombs and concussion grenades, and more than 5000 Palestinians received treatment for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – At 10.30pm last night, Tuesday 27th October 2015, a Palestinian man who has been identified as 23 year old Hammam Said was shot in al-Kahlil (Hebron) at the Gilbert checkpoint, directly outside the ISM apartment. The man was in the H2 neighborhood of Tel Rumeida which was otherwise quiet at the time.
No commotion, shouting or running was heard prior to the six gun shots echoing suddenly through the streets and no other security risk could otherwise be perceived.
Immediately following the incident, Israeli forces, who are permanently posted at the checkpoint for 24 hours a day, surrounded the body of the fallen man. Within minutes settlers from the nearby illegal settlement arrived and were allowed to approach and photograph the scene. Further forces then arrived, including soldiers and several police vehicles. An Israeli ambulance arrived but no medical aid was delivered to Said, instead paramedics stood close to the bleeding man and watched passively as he died.
Said was then stripped of his clothes, revealing that the gunshot wounds were all on the back of his body. He was then placed in a bodybag and the street was cleaned. By midnight the scene was totally cleared of all evidence of the incident.
A short video shows Hammam after he was stripped of his clothes by Israeli forces:
Eyewitnesses reported that no knife was originally witnessed on the scene, though one appeared after the soldiers surrounded the body. “I cannot say for sure they put the knife there, but I know even 5 seconds after the shooting I looked, I really looked, and I could see nothing. I am 99% sure of it. But afterwards, it was there.” She added “if an attack was planned at this location it wouldn’t even make sense. He was still 20 meters from the soldiers or checkpoint, in the middle of the night. Why would he wave the knife around?”
Extrajudicial executions of this kind are illegal in international law and there is no evidence that warning or deescalating force was applied before the lethal shooting of Said. The checkpoint has a camera positioned above the street and the International Solidarity Movement is demanding that Israeli forces release the raw footage to prove an association between the man and the knife allegedly found at the scene.
An hour and a half after the incident, an eyewitness reported that “it is like nothing happened, there is no bloodstain, nothing but a dog sniffing the ground. The street is eerily quiet and there are just the normal number of soldiers at the checkpoint.” They added that “they cannot really feel like there is a security threat here right now.” An hour after that an illegal settler vehicle was parked by the location of the shooting, playing loud festive music.
Listen to audio of settlers playing party songs after Hammam Said’s blood was washed off the ground:
Said’s death marks four Palestinian deaths in Hebron within two days, and brings the total death toll within the Occupied Territories of Palestine to 64 since the start of October. Hebron has been a centre of the rising tension in the West Bank, and today witnessed extreme suppression of peaceful protests in Bab Al-Zawwiya, when innumerable rounds of teargas were shot directly at dense crowd of demonstrators who were demanding the release of Palestinian corpses killed by Israeli forces.
It is anticipated that with allegations that Said had a knife that no investigation will be launched, yet another Palestinian will be branded as a terrorist, and as a final injustice another family will be denied their rightful mourning rites.
These are the last moments of 17-year-old Hebron schoolgirl Dania Irsheid, as described by witnesses: Raising her hands above her head, terrified by the shouts of Israeli police, Dania cried out, “I don’t have a knife.” Immediately, one shot hit the ground between her legs; then a hail of bullets followed, and she fell.
A video shows her lying motionless, her white headscarf stained with blood, as police mill about but make no attempt to assist her. The terrible scene took place at a checkpoint near Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque on Sunday.
Her death merited a brief and anonymous mention in The New York Times. Far into a story about the changing tactics of Palestinian Authority security forces, we find this single sentence: “Elsewhere in the West Bank, an Israeli police officer fatally shot a 17-year-old Palestinian girl who tried to stab him, The Associated Press reported.”
Witnesses at the scene said she had no knife and had already passed through two metal detectors and revolving doors before opening her book bag for inspection at the mosque site. Israeli police, however, released a statement saying she was a “female Arab terrorist” and had been “neutralized.”
The Times says nothing of these contradictions, and it has maintained a resounding silence over other Palestinian deaths, including the shooting of two Hebron schoolboys who were killed last week, also in disturbing and disputed circumstances. (See TimesWarp10-21-15).
On the other hand, the newspaper has taken pains to draw readers’ attention to an alleged stabbing attack on an Israeli citizen, which left the victim “moderately wounded” and resulted in the death of one Palestinian and the arrest of another.
The story appeared online five days ago, on Oct. 22, and was still present on the Middle East page through most of today’s online edition (it disappeared only after this post came out) under the headline “Jewish Man Stabbed in Israel by Palestinians as Violence Continues.” The article, touted so tenaciously on the Times website, is a mere 270 words and sketchily reported, but it outlasted other breaking news from the region with unusual longevity.
The death of Dania Irsheid merited no headline in the Times while the “moderate wounding” of an Israeli man was repeatedly flagged for online viewers. It is clear from this (and many other choices they make) that the newspaper’s editors have an agenda of their own, one that is inconsistent with accepted journalistic standards.
Israel is to be the perennial victim. Palestinians are to be the aggressors. Any deviation from this narrative causes dissonance at the Times.
Thus we find no stories about the harried and fearful lives of Palestinians in Hebron, even though the situation cries out for a close look at their ordeal. (Some 16 Palestinians have been killed in the city since the beginning of this month, out of 44 in the West Bank overall and 17 in Gaza, according to the International Middle East Media Center). Nor do we find any serious examination of the brutal occupation and colonization of Palestine that fuels the resistance.
We do, however, find a Times story about youthful Palestinian attackers inspired by social media, and we find an article focused on Palestinian songs with a nationalistic and sometimes violent bent. Both these articles appeared in print on page 1, and both conveniently fit the portrait of Palestinians as aggressors.
When evidence to the contrary cannot be ignored (as in the arson deaths of three Palestinian family members this summer), the Times turns to damage control. Thus, we have the newspaper attempting to undermine video evidence that shows Israeli security forces making false accusations or killing Palestinians who pose no threat.
This was the purpose of a story with the disingenuous headline, “Conflicting Accounts of Jerusalem Strife Surround a Wounded Arab Boy.” The point of this article is not what it purports to be, an examination of two different narratives, but an effort to debunk videos and witness accounts challenging the statements of Israeli security forces.
The Times devotes 1,600 words to telling us that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abba and others got it wrong when they said Ahmad Manasra, 13, caught on video as he lay bleeding in Jerusalem, had been killed. He had only been wounded, the Times notes, and he is now being cared for in hospital.
The Times (and Israeli officials) are using this error to claim that Palestinian testimonies cannot be trusted. Some video evidence of Israeli misconduct is irrefutable, however, and monitoring groups outside of Palestine have vouched for them, calling for an end to the use of excessive force and extrajudicial executions.
Moreover, the video of Ahmad is shocking in its revelations of Israeli settler brutality even though the boy eventually survived. And beyond this, the Times story itself makes a significant error in claiming that the boy is shown in hospital being “spoon-fed by a nurse.”
In fact, it was an attorney, Tareq Barghout, who held the spoon, as the man later testified. Barghout also said Ahmad was shackled to the bed and suffered constant verbal abuse from hospital staff. The Times story, however, included none of this information.
Israeli officials made much of the error over Ahmad’s survival, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “the new big lie,” and the Times obligingly followed suit. The overblown story is consistent with Times efforts to support the Israeli narrative and to discredit the testimony of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, three more died in Hebron on Monday, and the Times has once again failed to take notice. Palestinian deaths are—at best—footnotes in the newspaper of record while Israeli injuries are headlines. This is the unspoken but evident policy at TheNewYorkTimes.
BETHLEHEM – An Israeli settler shot and seriously injured a young Palestinian man on Sunday morning in the Wadi Sair area near the illegal Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Etzion and Sair village, east of Hebron, Palestinian security sources said.
Additionally, the mayor of nearby Sair village reported that seven Palestinians in the village had been shot and injured following the incident.
The settler who shot and critically injured the Palestinian man claimed, according to Israeli reports, that a Palestinian attacked him with a knife.
Palestinian security sources told Ma’an that an Israeli settler shot 20-year-old Azzam Azmi Shalalda four times while he was in his agricultural field, after the actual person suspected of carrying out the alleged attack had reportedly already fled the scene.
After the shooting, Shalalda was evacuated to al-Mamoon clinic in nearby Sair for first aid, before he was taken to al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron. Medics say he is in a critical condition. Shalalda is from the Sair village.
An Israeli army spokesperson said a Palestinian suspect attacked a 40-year-old Israeli after the Israeli man had stepped out of his car to confront Palestinians who were allegedly throwing stones at passing vehicles.
Israeli media outlets reported that the 40-year-old settler was evacuated to Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem after he was stabbed. He reportedly sustained moderate wounds.
An Israeli army spokesperson said that the alleged Palestinian “assailant fled from the scene,” adding that the reports were initial. The spokesperson had no information of a Palestinian shot or detained during the incident.
Mayor of Sair village, Kayed Jradat, told Ma’an that following the incident, Israeli forces raided Sair village and shot and injured seven Palestinians during the raid.
Doctor Zuheir Jaradat, who works at the town’s al-Mamoon clinic, said one of the victims sustained serious wounds as he was shot in the eye, while another man was hit with a live round in his thigh and was taken to hospital as well.
During the raid, Israeli forces inspected cars and checked the identities of villagers.
Jradat added that Palestinians in the village closed their stores out of fear of attacks by Israeli forces.
An Israeli police spokesperson said the area had been closed off.
Palestinian witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli forces chased a Palestinian vehicle between the southern West Bank towns of Sair and al-Shuyoukh after the incident. They highlighted that the alleged stabber had fled the scene, and an Israeli settler shot another young Palestinian man who had been working in nearby fields.
As Israeli state authorities processed my arrest on account of ‘an Instagram photo’, Israeli forces and settlers shot dead three Palestinian teenagers on the streets of Hebron on Saturday 17.10.15. With three teenagers killed and settlers literally celebrating in their blood, it is perhaps little surprise that those with cameras slung over shoulders are increasingly coming under threat.
Sitting in a cold room for hours, without access to a lawyer, I watched my beloved camera slammed on a table. Meanwhile, my presence in the base was denied to my colleague. One of my photos, I was told, rendered me a threat to the ‘security of Israel’.
An Instagram photo? Me? A threat to one of the most powerful states in the world?
The threat here? The truth.
Truth says Aeschylus, is the first casualty of war. But, can truth be a casualty? Truth cannot be arrested, deported, humiliated, beaten or killed. Hidden? Yes. Repressed? Yes. But it still remains.
Cameras indicate that – Occupation – we are watching you, we are documenting you, we are here, and we see you. We see Palestinian blood running on occupied streets in Hebron. Indeed, I dropped my camera lens cap in Hadeel’s.
CPT, as a very small thread in the fabric of resisting this occupation, has recently come under heightened attack. Including abusive phone-calls, increased police aggression and checks, and now, arrest.
We were detained by Israeli border police as we were en route to the site of 17 year-old Bayan’s murder. We stood detained against the wall as we waited for the commander “who wanted to speak” to me. Informed I was under arrest for taking a photo of “classified material” (two weeks ago in public space), I was taken to a police station to await interrogation. I knew they were ‘serious’ – this was not their normal provocation that we experience daily – but I did not yet know the full extent of the danger they would later put me in ten hours later.
“Why do you love these terrorists?” I was repeatedly questioned, amidst suggestions that I “go and sleep with Abu Mazzan” (PA leader Mahmoud Abbas) throughout the cold hours of waiting. I stated my right to inform my lawyer that I was in custody, to which I was greeted with “you tell your lawyer when I tell you to”, informed I would have to wait for longer because of such non-cooperation. My passport and my camera confiscated, I shivered for seven hours awaiting interrogation.
My body grew tenser and sorer, and, needless to say, my request for something warm was greeted with smirking. One Border Police woman amused herself with staring at me for some time. Another’s gun knocked my leg as he fidgeted. Another attempted to engage me in conversation about how ‘ungrateful’ ‘the Arabs’ were, citing the ‘giving back of Gaza’ in 2005. I declined conversation, deciding it was not the time to discuss locking over 1.5 million people in an open air prison and bombing them. Eventually most of the personnel trickled away, and I was left with one Border Police woman who, thankfully, largely ignored me. The sounds of explosions from all over Hebron, and two consecutive violent films – ironically set in prisons – filled the space as we sat in awkward silence.
Later, as the room refilled there began a somewhat animated discussion about the lack of English speakers to translate in interrogation. I listened wide-eyed as the discussion moved onto ‘Ofer’ – in reference to the renowned military prison near Ramallah. Ofer prison- where countless Palestinians are held for months without charge in ‘administrative detention’. As a British soldier was thankfully located, I was told I had one chance, and one chance only, to call my lawyer.
My one conversation over, interrogation began, and I was informed that I was to be deported. Apparently, I could speak to my lawyer again when I got off the plane. Chuckling, my interrogator changed this to a 15 day ban from Hebron. Supposedly, I was to leave that night. Listening to the clashes raging outside, with two teenagers killed so far, I expressed the impossibility, to which I was given a shrug and a “well if you don’t leave tonight, I deport you”. Told to sign forms, including one fully in Hebrew, I was also skin-crawlingly informed that my interrogator would keep my camera unless “I was a good girl for him”.
Suddenly, the interrogator received a call and ran from the room. 18 year old Tarek had been killed by Israeli soldiers. The third teenager in 12 hours.
Explosions outside the base heightened and a blindfolded Palestinian man, staggering as he was dragged in, was now slumped next to me. He was wincing with pain at the tightness of his handcuffs. “These are the terrorists you love” I was told.
An hour and a half later, my interrogator returned, and took my DNA, while we argued about the danger of leaving Hebron amidst the chaos of that bloody night. “It’s not safe” I said, “I have nowhere to go”, to which my interrogator repeated I could sleep with Abu Mazzan, and another replied “of course it’s not safe – you are in Israel, there are terrorists everywhere”. Resisting temptations of stating that we are in ‘occupied Palestinian territory’, I once again called my lawyer, having blessedly had my phone left with me in the chaos of the killing. Eventually, she convinced them to return my passport, my camera, and for me to leave by 9am the following morning.
Real panic set in as I was released. They did not release me to the Palestinian area, but into the settlement housing strongly ideological individuals. That day settlers had killed a teenager and celebrated in his blood. That day Israeli soldiers had called to other international activists to run, as settlers approached with machine guns. Having had my fair-share of being spat at, jeered at, being swerved at by cars, and accusations of Nazism or ISIS membership from settlers, I knew full well the danger, walking alone at 10pm. Those that made me leave that way were also fully aware of that danger, particularly heightened that day.
Reaching the now deserted road where Palestinians still live, I could hear the noise of mobs of settlers as I headed to the road block to meet my friend. Palestinian families watching the horror of the day from their windows were calling to me: “why are you out walking there? It’s not safe! Come off the street!” Three men cautiously opened their door, ushering me in to their family home. Loaded with the gift of cucumbers, one Palestinian man risked arrest – and even death had we ran into settlers – to walk me to the road block where I met friends, who drove me, also at their own risk, back home.
Back at the office, we sat listening until 3am to continued explosions and the calls of warning and help screaming from mosque towers around the city, as settlers continued to attack families.
My arrest is a very small fragment of a much wider repression of those documenting the violence of occupation. On the day I was arrested, so were two Palestinian activists from Youth against Settlements, having videoed the aftermath of Fadel’s murder. This week, the Israeli military has ransacked journalist offices, Israeli border police were caught on video stamping on the face of an accredited journalist, as the Foreign Press Association report “a series of unprovoked attacks”, and human rights workers and journalists are increasingly targeted in demonstrations.
Flicking through images and videos on my camera, I see the extreme ugliness of this occupation, which we will continue to write about, photograph and video. I also see the faces of the kindergarten children we escort to school in Hebron.
Truth: a casualty of war it may be, but a fatality? No. It cannot be. It exists. It screams. It threatens. It simmers. In ‘speaking truth to power’, not only do we see the horrors of the violence of this occupation, but we see the glimmers of hope and humanity that cannot be repressed.
On 16 October 2015, Israeli Ambassador Roet addressed the UN Security Council in an emergency session on the escalating situation in Israel and Palestine. Below are excerpts of his speech followed by facts disproving them provided by the Palestinian government in a statement released yesterday.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “Israel is facing an onslaught of terrorism; men, women and children are being stabbed to death on the streets on a daily basis. Yet for them there has been no demand for an emergency session at the Security Council.”
Fact: The Palestinian people are a defenceless and unarmed population suffering gross violations of human rights under Israel’s illegal occupation. It is in fact the Israeli occupation that is the source and context of all of the violence, violence that has been inflicted by Israel with total impunity for over 48 years on the Palestinian people. Yet Israel has the audacity to oppose international action to protect the civilian population.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “These are just a few of the silent victims of Palestinian terror.”
Fact: Individuals that carried out the alleged stabbings acted alone and without the support of others. On the contrary, Israeli settlers carry out terrorist acts with Israeli state protection – military and political. Nearly 200 acts have been carried out by settlers against Palestinian civilians in the past month. These include stoning and firebombing Palestinian cars, houses and civilians; trespassing on villages and property; setting fire and damaging crops; and attacking, beating and shooting at Palestinians, including children.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “Over the course of the last month, 24 terror attacks have claimed the lives of eight Israelis, and injured 70.”
Fact: Israel, the occupying power, is not a victim in this situation. Since 1 October 2015, over 1,850 Palestinians have been injured and at least 46 killed, including at least 18 in demonstrations. The Israeli occupying forces (IOF) have greatly intensified their excessive use of force, especially to suppress protests, through the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, sound canisters and live fire.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “The root cause of this wave of terror is clear.”
Fact: The root cause of the current violence is Israel’s half century illegal occupation of the Palestinian land and its subjugation of the Palestinian people. Palestinians, many of them children, are killed, wounded, arrested and harassed and intimidated every day while their property is seized, demolished, or bombed. This incessant oppression leaves little hope for a peaceful and stable future, deepens despair and encourages the oppressed to resist injustice.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “Israel is firmly committed to the status quo which protects the right of Muslims to pray in the mosque.”
Fact: The IOF has intensified incursions and attacks at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by allowing terrorist settlers free reign to storm the holy site in attempts to change the historic status quo. Between 14 January and 15 September, the IOF and settlers under their protection carried out more than 450 attacks against this holy site and Palestinian civilian worshippers.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “It is inflammatory rhetoric and lies lit the fuse, and incitement that keeps feeding the flames.”
Fact: Israeli leaders have long and recklessly cultivated a culture of hate against Palestinians that’s manifested in the constant and excessive use of violence by the IOF and terrorist settlers. For example:
“We will not provide immunity to any rioter, inciter, or terrorist, not anywhere and under no conditions. Israel’s security forces have no limits when it comes to defending Israelis,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, on 5 October.“Palestinians have to understand they won’t have a state and Israel will rule over them,” said Eli Ben-Dahan, deputy defence minister of Israel, on 10 October. “The entire Palestinian people is the enemy…in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure,” said Ayelet Shaked, Israeli justice minister, on 7 July 2014.
“Instead of calming tensions, Palestinian leaders continue to lie and use inflammatory rhetoric.”
Fact: The Palestinian Government has repeatedly affirmed that it supports peaceful and legal means to end the illegal Israeli occupation. President Abbas recently stated: “I support a popular, nonviolent struggle and oppose all violence and use of weapons. I’ve made clear a number of times that I don’t want to return to the cycle of violence.”
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “Such acts of terror do not occur in a vacuum.”
Fact: Indeed, they don’t occur in a vacuum. They occur when there is constant impunity for brutal crimes by the IOF and terrorist settlers. This includes the burning of teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the arson attack of the Dawabsheh family home, and the mounting executions of Palestinian civilians, including children and youths by the IOF with live fire. When the IOF investigates soldiers for suspected criminal activity against Palestinians, it closes 94 per cent of cases without prosecution.
Israeli Ambassador Roet: “Prime Minister Netanyahu stood here in the UN and declared that he is ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians without any preconditions.”
Fact: The Israeli government tells the UN it’s prepared for negotiations while telling the Israeli public a Palestinian state will never come to be. On 18 October, Justice Minister Shaked avowed: “We are against a Palestinian state. There is not and there will be no Palestinian state.” Direct negotiations are inherently asymmetrical as Palestine is under Israel’s occupation. The international community must present a multilateral and time-bound negotiating process to salvage the prospects of peace, beginning with concrete steps to end this illegal occupation without delay.
West Bank, occupied Palestine – A video posted on October 12th by Shehab news agency described as an attack on a Palestinian girl from Haifa in her twenties for allegedly trying to assault a taxi driver in Tel Aviv after an argument between them. The video shows a woman pinned to the ground by a man as passers-by argue about whether or not to beat and kill her. One woman claims she saw the woman had a knife and screams “Why are you playing around. They are coming to kill our children!” and demands her execution. Another bystander asks the man “Did she come at you with a knife?” and he replies “She put her hand in her pocket.” Yet Another kicks her in the head.
While there undoubtedly are stabbings of Israelis taking place, there are also undoubtedly mistaken or false accusations and pressure from Israeli civilians to kill people they suspect of being terrorists. The latest example being the Eritrean asylum seeker Mulu Habtom Zerhom who was shot and beaten to death in the Beersheva central bus station after being mistaken for an Arab. Because Mulu was not Palestinian there will be an investigation committee looking into his murder.
Palestinians who are killed are assumed guilty by default. In the case of the Palestinian woman in the video taken in Tel Aviv, if some of the bystanders hadn’t intervened and the woman had been lynched it would have been reported as: “knife wielding terrorist neutralized”. This is how the Israeli media portrayed 23 year old Ahmed Sha’ban from Ras el-Amud in Occupied East Jerusalem. Al Quds Newspaper published a video showing an Israeli security guard shooting twice directly at Ahmed’s body after he is already on the ground. An Israeli eye witness is heard stating: “Central bus station in Jerusalem, just now, a terrorist was exterminated, bro, right in front of me! Right in front of me he shot him ten times! Ten bullets were shot at him now! It’s such a mess here! I don’t know, he didn’t touch anything… He didn’t have a knife in his hand. Everyone shouted ‘terrorist’. The security guard shot him. I am telling you the bullets are right in front of me. My head hurts.”
Israeli officials have been criticised by human rights organisations for calling on Israelis with licensed guns to carry them in public and to kill any suspect. They have made it clear that it is not necessary to determine if the suspect is holding a knife before shooting to kill. At a press conference on October 8th Israeli Minister of defence Moshe Yaalon stated “Right now it is required primarily to be vigilant, determined, to respond quickly to any local attack, to eliminate the terrorist stabber or the perpetrator, stone thrower and the like, immediately on the spot. This is the answer to this kind of terrorism.” Other Israeli officials rushed to echo the sentiment On the 11th of October MK Yair Lapid Head of the Yesh Atid party said on a televised interview,” whoever takes out a knife or a screwdriver or whatever it may be, needs to be shot to kill”, adding “don’t hesitate. Even at the start of an attack, shooting to kill is correct.”
There have been many cases of alleged knife wielders shot in the last months since the killing of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun in Hebron that Amnesty international categorized as an extrajudicial execution. They all deserve an investigative committee. Whether a suspect is falsely accused or did actually carry out an attack, shooting and/or killing people who do not constitute an immediate threat to anyone is war crime.
HEBRON – More than 200 Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Wad al-Haseen and Wad al-Nasara near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba overnight in the eastern Hebron district of the occupied southern West Bank, locals and medics said.
During the attack, Israeli settlers threw stones and firebombs at Palestinian homes and injured at least three people, two of which were minors, while Israeli forces later shot and injured one Palestinian with live fire.
An Israeli army spokesperson said she did not have reports of any injuries with live fire.
The spokesperson said clashes between Palestinians and Israelis broke out in the area, after which Israeli forces “arrived at the scene and dispersed the clashes using riot dispersal means.”
Kayed Daana, one of the residents whose home was attacked told Ma’an that dozens of Israeli settlers attacked her neighborhood and injured at least three of her neighbors who have been identified as 40-year-old Imad and two minors, Abdullah, 13, and Muhammad, 17.
Muhammad’s injuries were the most serious of the three, as he was hit in the chest with one of the fire bombs, medics said.
Daana told Ma’an that she would like to urge the International Red Cross and others in the international community intervene against Israeli violations and attacks on Palestinians.
Bassam al-Jabri, one of the residents, said he saw the attacking Israeli settlers cutting the blockade fence that separates the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arab from nearby Palestinian homes, while under the protection of the Israeli troops before they attacked his neighborhood with fire bombs.
Al-Jabri said his house was one of those set ablaze, but that he and his neighbors were able to put the fire out before the fire was able to damage his whole home.
During the attacks, Palestinian villagers fled to their local mosques and used the mosque amplifier to call for help from neighboring Palestinian villages and communities, who responded to their calls.
Israeli forces then got involved, shooting tear gas at Palestinians who showed up to help.
Community member Farid al-Razim, told Ma’an that villagers in his area were attacked by Israeli settlers with firebombs, while Israeli forces were shooting tear gas, and that one of the Palestinians from a neighboring village who had come to help was shot and injured with live fire.
While relations between Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank are normally tense, the situation has been significantly deteriorating since settlers’ torched a home belonging to the Duwabsha family in Nablus on July 31.
An 18-month-old toddler was burned alive during the attack, while his mother and father succumbed to their burn wounds while being treated at separate hospitals. The family’s four-year-old son is the only remaining survivor of the attack.
On Oct. 1, suspected Palestinians shot and killed Eitam and Naama Henkin, two settlers who were driving between the illegal settlements of Itamar and Elon More in an area near Huwwara in Nablus.
Their four children, aged between four months and nine years, were found unharmed in the back of the car.
It is speculated that the shootings were a revenge attack on Israeli settlers, following months of increased restrictions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and calls from right-wing Jewish groups, urging their supporters to visit the compound, which is venerated by Jews as the Temple Mount.
Following the shooting, hundreds of Israeli settlers rioted across the occupied West Bank, with multiple attacks reported on Palestinian homes and vehicles.
Palestinian towns and villages in the Nablus area are surrounded by Israeli settlements and outposts, many of which are protected by the Israeli military and have gained notoriety for being comprised of the most extremist settlers.
The Palestinian government has no jurisdiction over Israelis in the West Bank, and violent acts carried out by Israeli settlers often occur in the presence of Israeli military forces who rarely act to protect Palestinian residents.
Palestinians are therefore left to fend for themselves as few options for their personal security remain.
While Israeli forces will detain a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank for possessing a knife or gun, Israelis living in the same area are legally able to carry such weapons.
Rights groups have criticized Israel for implementing different legal systems for Palestinians and Israeli settlers living in the same area.
Such practices, they say, protect the expansion of settlements while systematically removing the ability for Palestinians to move freely throughout the occupied territory.
Hebron, occupied Palestine – Today, Israeli forces and Israeli settlers in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron) murdered two Palestinian youth within three hours.
In the morning, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements within al-Khalil, walked past the 18-year old Palestinian youth Fadel al-Qawasmeh in segregated Shuhada street, cursing him as an ‘Arab’ and then pulled a gun shooting him from point blank range. The settler fired four shots at the Palestinian youth with his pistol, one shot directly in the head. This execution was entirely unprovoked. Israeli soldiers rushed to the scene, but prevented a Palestinian ambulance from treating the critically injured Palestinian youth who was lying on the ground bleeding. Whereas the area around the execution was immediately closed for Palestinians and international observers by the Israeli forces, settlers at all times were allowed to freely stroll alongside the scene of the murder, with soldiers taking pictures with their private phones.
Israeli settlers standing right next to the scene of the execution
Later on, Israeli forces blocked all entrances to a Palestinian house nearby where activists where trying to document [events]. In the meantime, settlers from the nearby illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah, watching from down on the street close by a checkpoint were enjoying tea and biscuits, brought from the settlement, with the soldiers and the police. After Israeli forces washed off the blood from the street, they broke into the house where Palestinians had been filming, with 11 children, the youngest only a year old, present. Heavily armed Israeli soldiers searched the house and confiscated all phones and cameras. Once they left the house, they checked all the photos and videos taken after the execution of Fadel, and showed them to the settlers nearby.
Israeli settlers and soldiers sharing tea at the scene of the execution of Fadel al-Qawasmeh
Israeli soldiers having tea brought by settlers
Palestinians and international human rights observers trying to document this violent attack on a family home were repeatedly forced by Israeli forces to move away from the incident, whereas the settlers were allowed to freely walk around and curse and hurl insults at them, even threatening them that they will be the next to be killed. One Palestinian man was forced by Israeli soldiers to pass through a checkpoint even though soldiers were throwing stun grenades right outside the checkpoint. 23-year old Abed al-Salaymeh was detained in Tel Rumeida for one and a half hours, after soldiers prevented him from going back to his home in segregated Shuhada Street. Different soldiers repeatedly ordered him and internationals to either move up the hill from the checkpoint, or when further up to move back down, all the time prohibiting him from going back to his house. Once up the hill, he was detained for one and a half hours, with soldiers freely admitting that this is because he ‘annoyed’ them before. Settlers passing by were threatening him and internationals that ‘tomorrow they would be the ones to be killed’.
Israeli forces blocking the entrances to a Palestinian house
Only three hours later, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year old Palestinian teenager Bayan Eiseleh at the Ibrahimi mosque. Her parents, rushing to the scene of her killing, were brutally attacked and beaten by Israeli forces. International human rights observers trying to document this senseless killing were detained by Israeli forces and then one of them was arrested for ‘taking pictures and posting them online’. She is still being held at the police station in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba.
By James W. Carden | The Realist Review | June 14, 2026
Joe Biden’s presidency may ultimately come to be seen as a cautionary tale. Here was a president who showed little interest in entertaining arguments that might have contradicted his most deeply held assumptions.[1] And there were precious few within the upper ranks of the administration who might have attempted to do so, after all, only policy hands and political operatives who had come up through the ranks of the Clinton and Obama administrations or had longstanding ties to the citadels of the foreign policy community were invited into the fold. … continue
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