By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | July 14, 2023
Israeli settler terrorism is a strategy employed by Israel to advance its territorial gains and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
US President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as being the “most extreme” he’s seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Minister’s coalition as being “part of the problem.”
His comments immediately drew attention to Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, along with Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, and illegal West Bank settlers in general.
But Israeli settler extremism is not isolated to the West Bank, nor to Israel’s current far-right government’s ministers like Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Israeli settlers occupy the highest positions in the military and government, while extremists are operating special militias inside the Israeli army – with its approval – and additionally receiving funds from US charitable organizations.
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have been steadily on the rise over the past years, with an average of three violent incidents occurring per day in 2023, compared to two in 2022 and one in 2021, according to the United Nations.
One of the worst recorded attacks this year came on February 26, when a settler militia force, at least 400 strong, descended upon several villages surrounding the Palestinian city of Nablus, including the town of Huwara.
The settler attack, even described as a pogrom by top Israeli general Yehuda Fuchs, resulted in the murder of a Palestinian man, in addition to the burning down of at least 30 homes and 100 cars.
In support of the settler assault, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly proclaimed that he thought “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”
In mid-June, another 400 armed Israeli settlers attacked Turmusaya and surrounding villages, torching 30 homes and around 60 cars, additionally resulting in over 100 injuries and the murder of another Palestinian man; while he was attempting to save children.
The two most notorious far-right members of Israel’s current coalition government are ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, both of whom live in illegal settlements and were longtime activists as part of the settler movement.
Ben Gvir, who has faced a laundry list of criminal charges ranging from terror group affiliations to incitement of racism, resides in the extremist settlement of al-Khalil (Hebron). Smotrich currently resides in Kedumim, a settlement located just a short drive from Yitzhar – the other infamous settler community.
Their unified list, running under the name Religious Zionism, secured the third-highest number of votes from the Israeli public and now holds the position of the second-largest party in the current coalition government.
Not ‘a few bad apples’
Dror Sadot, spokesperson for B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, emphasizes that we cannot downplay the broader support and backing that enables such actions. She tells The Cradle that: “Even if it wasn’t this current Ben Gvir-Smotrich government, it would still be Apartheid.”
“When the Huwara pogrom happened, we should’ve paid attention to what sort of backup the settlers got from those politicians. What they are saying reveals the truth, it reveals the mechanisms in place that were always there under previous governments.”
Sadot continues: “We shouldn’t talk about settler violence as if it is a few bad apples, or extremists, or anything like this, because, at the end of the day, Israel is backing everything.”
While attention has been drawn to figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the truth is that radical right-wing settlers occupy significant positions within the Israeli government and military.
The recent decision to launch an invasion of Jenin, for example, was heavily influenced by pressure from settler communities. Yossi Dagan, head of the regional settlement council in the Northern West Bank, played a prominent role in encouraging the violent attack on Jenin, which experts at the UN have labeled a war crime.
Yet, Dagan’s ambitions did not stop there. He called on the government to “order the IDF to immediately launch a larger, broader, more thorough and in-depth operation.”
Radicals in the corridors of power
Israeli Member of Knesset for the ruling Likud Party, Avichai Boaron, has also made alarming statements. Following the military operation in Jenin, Boaron suggested that “we must expand the military operation to include Nablus and Ramallah as well.”
Notably, Boaron himself is a settler activist who has come under fire for using euphemisms to refer to Palestinians while proposing extermination camps as a solution.
In 2018, Netanyahu posted on social media to celebrate Avichai Boaron’s success with the Amihai settlement, which was built in 2017 as an alternative to the evacuated settler outpost of Amona – illegally developed on Palestinian land – that had turned into a “crisis” for the Israeli public.
The Amihai settlement was added to the illegal settlement of Shiloh, accompanied by the settler outposts of Adei Ad, Geulat Zion, and others, which happen to surround Turmusaya, along with other Palestinian villages which have recently been targets of large-scale settler-militia attacks.
Boaron recently secured a position in the Likud Party to replace David Amsalem, who Netanyahu promoted to be the Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister. Amsalem is also a West Bank settler, from the illegal colony of Ma’alei Adumim, and is currently in charge of “advancing partnerships with states in the region (the Mediterranean basin) and the Palestinian Authority.”
Moreover, the leadership of the Israeli military itself is not immune to this influence. Herzi Halevi, the current Chief of Staff, is a resident of the illegal colony of Kfar Ha-Oranim in the West Bank. His appointment to this key role was approved last year under the government of Yair Lapid, with no major objections.
Avi Moaz, the deputy minister and head of the national Jewish identity department in the Prime Minister’s Office, resides in an illegal settlement stronghold located in the Silwan area of occupied East Jerusalem. His position holds significant weight, and he is a leading figure in the Noam Party.
Speaking to The Cradle, the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research and Development, Ubai al-Aboudi, says that “the settlers are a militia, these are not civilian groups, most of them are ideologues, they see themselves as tasked with replacing Palestinian villagers, their houses, and they call for this openly.”
The two strongholds of the settler terror groups are situated around the Palestinian cities of Al-Khalil and Nablus. Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva, in Yitzhar settlement, is the indoctrination center for many of the most extreme settler terrorists, where they are taught ideas, such as, that Arabs are a “cancer” and that killing non-Jewish babies is permissible.
The army colludes with settlers
According to the conclusions of a 2022 report published by B’Tselem on settler violence, the attacks “are not perpetrated by “bands of outlaws” or “bad seeds,” nor are they simply “violent outbursts” or “unusual incidents,” but rather they are a “strategy employed by the Israeli apartheid regime.”
A 2021 investigation conducted jointly between The Intercept and Local Call found that at least four of the 11 Palestinians who were killed in the West Bank on 14 May of that year, were due to deliberate joint attacks carried out by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
In the May 2021 joint settler-soldier attack on Palestinians in the village of Urif, the Israeli military confirmed in a statement that one of the masked settlers caught on film firing at Palestinians, alongside soldiers, was, in fact, from the settlement of Yitzhar and himself an active Israeli soldier.
Zvi Sukot, who was a spokesperson for the settlement of Yitzhar and part of the ‘Hilltop Youth,’ applauded the Israeli army for the joint attacks on Palestinians at the time. Sukot, who is now a member of the Israeli Knesset as part of the current government, made his name campaigning for the release of a group of settlers who burned a Palestinian baby to death in 2015.
Israeli settlers were caught on a leaked video dancing at a wedding, celebrating the murder of the 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, and stabbing at pictures of the Palestinian family they had killed alongside him. Present also at the wedding was the legal representative for the terrorist settlers, Itamar Ben Gvir.
As recently as June 24, Israeli settlers were documented to have used Israeli army-issued assault rifles – Colt M4’s manufactured in the US – to shoot at Palestinians in the village of Umm Safa.
The settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created ‘Desert Frontier’ army unit, where they represent a majority of the Unit and are carrying out severe abuses across the West Bank.
B’Tselem spokeswoman, Dror Sadot, says that her organization has “documented hundreds of cases of settler violence, during many of which the soldiers were there, and in the “best cases” you will see they won’t do anything, but in the worst cases they will join the settlers against the Palestinians.”
In a frightening development, Israeli Security Minister Ben Gvir has been granted permission to build Israel’s new “national guard,” which is shaping up to be a publicly funded ultra-nationalist militia force to serve the extremist goals of the Israeli settler movement. One of the Israeli colonel’s that is helping Ben Gvir form the national guard is Efraim Laor, who made the following comment during a lecture in 2019:
“An enemy needs to be killed, you don’t shoot at [terror] cells, you shoot between the eyes – whoever can’t do that, 15 cm lower. Including those who are there and are not attacking. But you see an enemy – you do not find out whether he is involved or not — he’s involved — he needs to be eliminated.”
US charities fueling illegal settlements
The Hilltop Youth settler group, often portrayed as “bands of outlaws,” have direct links to the Israeli government and even charitable donations from the US. In 2008, the Hilltop Youth ushered in a new era of what was called “Price-Tag” violence, where settlers would attack Palestinian civilians, along with their mosques, schools, crops, and homes.
One such figure within this context is Itay Zar, known as the first Hilltop Youth, who established the settler outpost of Havat Gilad in 2002. It is important to note that settlement outposts, including settler “farms,” are considered illegal under Israeli law.
However, many are eventually recognized by Israeli authorities, as was the case with Havat Gilad in 2018. The proximity of Havat Gilad to the Yitzhar settlement, which houses a notoriously radical Yeshiva (Jewish religious school), illustrates how extremist belief systems are transmitted within these religious educational institutions.
One US-based charity named the Central Fund of Israel (CFI) was found to have funded an extremist Yeshiva, along with the Honenu group that provides legal funds and financial support for settler terrorists. CFI still operates as a charity in the US, despite having funneled tens of millions of dollars to far-right extremist groups in occupied territory.
Worryingly, the settler extremists, despite not having known structured armed organizations, were revealed in May to have been integrated into a special Israeli military unit. The extremist settlers belonging to the Hilltop Youth have allegedly been inducted into the newly created Desert Frontier army unit, where they represent a majority of the unit and are carrying out severe crimes across the West Bank.
A concerning web of US-based and registered charities exists, providing direct financial support to organizations guiding the settlement movement, according to Ubai al-Aboudi. This ongoing financial backing allows these organizations to receive funds, perpetuating the expansion of Israeli settlements.
The Israel Land Fund (ILF), for instance, supports the acquisition of real estate for Israeli settlers, providing legal assistance for them, and advertises properties in the occupied territories. The ILF’s fiscal sponsor is the aforementioned CFI, which is a registered charity in New York, it is also the fiscal sponsor for Regavim, which works to expand Israeli control over Palestinian land through applying pressure on the relevant Israeli authorities.
The Hebron Fund, directly registered in New York, plays a role in funding the illegal settlement project in al-Khalil (Hebron). The fiscal sponsor for the Ir David Foundation, which utilizes archaeological claims to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem, is called the Friends of Ir David and is also registered in New York.
Similarly, Ateret Cohanim, working to establish a Jewish demographic majority in occupied East Jerusalem by replacing Palestinian families with Israeli settlers, has its fiscal sponsor named the Friends of Ateret Cohanim, registered in New York as well.
Two sides of the same coin
Israeli settlers have recently attacked the properties of Palestinians who are US citizens, which according to the US’s stringent property laws, should force them to intervene and protect their own nationals. According to US law, since 1854 it has been seen as an obligation for sitting President’s to intervene in order to protect the lives and properties of citizens threatened by foreign powers.
Even in the cases of murdered US citizens, there is no protection or significant pressure applied on the Israeli government. In the cases of Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Asad, Ourwa Hamad, and Mahmoud Shalan, all US citizens, no one was charged for their murders by the Israeli authorities.
The Biden administration’s allowance of such financing, coupled with its failure to safeguard its own citizens, creates a contradiction as it condemns the settlement movement while inadvertently encouraging it.
Meanwhile, his government continues to allow US dollars to finance Israeli settler extremism, and the settlement movement, does nothing to protect its own citizens from Israeli criminality.
Never mind the White House’s public criticism of Israeli extremism. In reality, there are few punitive measures Washington is prepared to take against Israel’s ferocious aggressions. This, despite the mounting evidence that there is no separation between the Israeli government and the settler movement today.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and has worked with RT, Middle East Eye, The New Arab, MEMO, Mint Press News, Al-Mayadeen English, TRT World, and various other media outlets. He has worked as a news correspondent, political analyst, and produced a number of documentary films. https://twitter.com/falasteen47
International Solidarity Movement | November 20, 2023
South Hebron Hills – Wadi Tiran is a good example, and sadly one of many, of Israel’s big plan to make Palestine the land without people. Over the last month, the community of Wadi Tiran has been repeatedly “visited” by either settlers or soldiers, or both (since distinguishing between them is more and more difficult nowadays), ordering everybody in the village to leave or they would kill them. One of these “visits” resulted in all windows on their tractor, pickup and their car being smashed.
The ISM team, together with Israeli activists, has been part of the protective presence in Wadi Tiran for over a week and has witnessed some of the threats this small herding homestead has endured, including settlers on motorbikes and a quad coming nearby, and only yesterday (November 18) a four wheel drive vehicle with settlers appeared inside the homestead. The settlers did not get out of the car but instead drove around provocatively and proceeded to another Tiran homestead located on the nearby hill.
The Israeli activists called the Israeli police only to be asked by them, “Why are you supporting the terrorists?” Having witnessed the terror being inflicted on the residents of Wadi Tiran first hand, we ask the same question of the Israeli government, the United States government, and other national and international bodies that enable, support, and fund the ethnic cleansing of communities like Wadi Tiran.
Wadi Tiran is a small homestead where two brothers and their families, altogether about 30 people, most of them children, live, herding around 300 sheep and goats. The father of the two farmers was expelled in 1948 from the Yattir area and moved to the arid slope of the Wadi Tiran hill where they made life ever since.
The two brothers talked with sadness and longing about their ancestral land where their father grew wheat, corn, chickpeas and lentils and where water was available in abundance. “Only in one part of Yattir there were more than 100 springs,” they recalled.
Now the water they have comes from the rain collected in one well, which they use for animals, but there is not enough of it. Additional water has to be purchased and brought from the outside at the expense they could ill afford nowadays. Both brothers used to work from time to time doing agricultural work in Israel until the start of the current escalation in hostilities, and together with all other Palestinian workers they have now lost their jobs.
Efforts by the occupiers to make their already hard lives impossible have peaked now, but it started long ago. On our way to Wadi Tiran via the dirt road, we could see that in many parts it has been destroyed. That was the work of the Israeli army bulldozers, which three months ago piled boulders and piles of earth and rocks on the road in several locations to make access to the homestead difficult. We had to drive around them and sometimes over them, causing an unpleasant rocky ride, fearing for the damage to our vehicle.
The main threat to the farmers’ livelihood was ‘the law’ introduced verbally by the settlers setting out a boundary of 200 meters from the homestead where grazing is now banned. Since then, the brothers have had to buy practically all the food for their animals, and drive the seven monthly tons of it down the road ravaged by the army.
Not that the Israel occupation was ever “light”, but since the war on Gaza all the rule books and established practices have been abandoned. Feeding on the rage the Israeli nation is in the grip of following the attacks by the fighters from Gaza, settlers are out of control and all pretences that occupation authorities are attempting to stop them from committing violence, has been dropped. The military knows about settler violence and either chooses to turn a blind eye or joins in on their violence.
What is also different currently is that nobody knows if those doing the harassing, attacking, and threatening are soldiers, settlers or settler security. The regular army has been sent to attack Gaza. The occupation of the West Bank and the “protection” of the illegal settlements was handed over to army reservists, many of whom are illegal settlers and settler security. They have formed “regional defence battalions” and these violent thuggish armies, often masked and fully or partially dressed in army uniforms, block the roads and village entrances and appear any time of day and night to attack the Palestinians, destroy their fields, their livestock and the contents of their homes.
They are either joined or are led by the “civilian” illegal settlers who have been handed large quantities of arms by Ben Gvir’s Security Ministry so that they can “defend” their settlements. While in the past the settlement security would mostly operate within the boundaries of the settlements, post October 7th, they are tasked with terrorizing and ethnically cleansing wide areas surrounding the settlements.
There is little doubt that without serious consequences from Israel’s powerful allies, and the United States in particular, the horrendous and criminal lawlessness and violence will leave the Wadi Tiran families without a future in this area.
Fathers of the two families told us that they fear for their future and the future of their children. “We have been farmers all our lives and that is what we do. Where shall we go?” the two farmers asked. That is the most asked question in the South Hebron Hills these days, leading to long sleepless nights, anxiety, fear, and a living nightmare, echoed in the lives of people from dozens of villages facing the same fate.
MEMO | November 19, 2023
By Alastair Crooke | Al Mayadeen | November 17, 2023
“We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba”, says Avi Dichter, “Israel’s” Minister for Agriculture and former head of Shin Bet. The Israeli cabinet has been briefed that up to 1,700,000 Gazans (out of a total population of 2.2 million) are no longer able to live in their own homes, either because they’ve been ‘displaced’, or because their homes have been destroyed/damaged.
To project the image of the Israeli military as ‘bounding ahead’ with its operation to eradicate Hamas however, we see many videos of tanks and armoured personnel carriers around Gaza City — but by contrast, observe notably few images of IOF soldiers patrolling on foot – either to protect the tanks, which are subject to sniper or RPG fire, or (as many commentators suspect) out of fear of Israeli casualties.
Plainly, “Israel” sticks to their armoured vehicles, though they are taking regular losses of their vehicles from ‘flash’ mini squads of Hamas fighters emerging suddenly from concealed tunnels to destroy the vehicles – before disappearing again underground.
The IOF has entered Gaza City, progressing a couple of kilometres over the month, yet showing no serious evidence to date of having encountered the Hamas’ forces, nor having eliminated an appreciable number of them. Why?
Simply put, the Israelis are fighting a conventional war-model (an armoured ‘fist’ inching ahead under massive air support). But the contradiction to this model is blatantly obvious: the so-called ‘enemy’ on the ground simply are civilians, who are dying in horrifying numbers, whilst the Hamas forces remain intact, deep underground. That, too, is where the Hamas infrastructure lies.
The contradictions inherent to this approach lie rooted in the IOF’s evolution over decades to become a quasi-colonial police force, used to policing occupation through the twin vectors of massive force, plus absolute force protection. It is no secret that the IOF fears to engage in hand-to-hand firefights with Hamas units in the tunnel complex (for which their fighters are not adapted). So instead, we have a show of armoured vehicles parading on the surface, coupled with largely unsubstantiated IOF claims of damage inflicted on Hamas.
The most obvious contradiction is the Israeli Cabinet’s claim that the near non-existent military pressures on Hamas per se, are creating the conditions for the releasing of hostages; whereas the real pressure — the incessant air strikes – that are devastating the civilian population and its infrastructure (hospitals, schools, bakeries and refugee camps), is facilitating a second Nakba — more than any hostage release.
Maybe Hamas will release more hostages (calculated in terms of its strategic aims). If so, this likely will be construed – wrongly – as Hamas feeling pain. The conclusion, therefore, may be drawn that carpet bombing ‘works’. As Zvi Bar’el outlines in the liberal Israeli daily, Haaretz:
“According to Israel’s conception, the humanitarian crisis is part of an arsenal at its disposal, which can be used not just as a bargaining chip in negotiations over the release of hostages. Its role is to sear into Palestinian consciousness the apocalyptic punishment facing anyone who from now on dared challenge Israel.
This is a continuation of the deeply rooted strategic concept according to which humanitarian suffering might yield security-related gains …
More importantly, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza now gives Israel diplomatic leverage which includes getting concessions … Above all, it entails a defanging of the American rush to reach a two-state solution.”
The ineluctable logic to this analysis therefore is to continue with the status quo: If it isn’t working in respect to freeing hostages, or degrading Hamas, it can be presented to the Israeli public as ‘working’ through forcing civilians to flee their devastated communities (what Dichter calls the “Gaza Nakba”).
With the ‘Nakba Doctrine’ taking a hold, so favourable conditions for the release of hostages (which Hamas predicates upon a lengthy ceasefire and humanitarian supplies) melts away. The IOF can have one or the other: Either continuous destruction, or conditions for hostage releases. (It seems the cabinet has opted for the former.)
The other (more profound) dilemma is that international pressures for a ceasefire (and hostage release) are accumulating. Time is short, and the military operation may be required to cease. The issue for the Netanyahu Cabinet is — once stopped — will it be possible to resume the massacres of civilians and the Gaza Nakba pressures?
In this context, Israeli popular sentiment — even amongst former liberals — is moving toward a Greater Nakba. Gaza is under Nakba pressures. So is the West Bank, as settler violence against Palestinians surges. Even a ‘liberal’ such as former opposition leader Lapid now agrees that ‘settlers’ in the occupied West Bank are not ‘settlers’ at all, since the land is but the ‘Biblical land of Israel’.
Nakba ‘ambitions’ are widening to South Lebanon (up to the Litani River) too. The radical members of Netanyahu’s government say Israelis will never return to the kibbutz adjacent to Lebanon, without Hezbollah’s removal from the border area.
So, the call is heard for “Israel” to ‘take’ Lebanon up to the Litani (a key water source) — and ‘serendipitously’ the Israeli air force has begun operating up to 40 kms inside Lebanon. Cabinet members now openly speak of the IOF needing to turn its attention to Hezbollah once Hamas has been ‘obliterated’.
The northern border inevitably is heating up. Hezbollah is using its more sophisticated, and more lethal weaponry against IOF positions in northern “Israel” as the ‘rules’ of engagement continuously blur. And “Israel” is responding, with attacks shifting ever deeper into South Lebanon (ostensibly to strike at Hezbollah’s rear infrastructure).
Last night the Israeli War Cabinet voted for striking a major blow at Hezbollah — but Netanyahu demurred. The US reportedly suspects that “Israel” is provoking Hezbollah, hoping to entice the US into a war on Lebanon.
Plainly, the White House is struggling to avoid the slide towards full regional war, as both the Lebanese front and the Iraqi front heats up: On Sunday, Iraqi movements again fired missiles at the American base in Shaddadi.
“Israel” is sensing the present crisis to be both an existential risk, but an ‘opportunity’ too – an opportunity to establish “Israel” across ‘its Biblical lands’ over the long term. There is no mistaking it — this is the direction of travel of Israeli popular sentiment, from both Left and Right wings, to bloody eschatology.
As one prominent Israeli commentator wrote after watching (the unsubstantiated) 47-minute IOF film on the 7 October events:
“After seeing the film I have no compassion for any person in Gaza, not a woman, not a child, and certainly not a man. Everyone deserves a painful death, you were all complicit in this massacre. I hope that no one is left alive in Gaza, period! … I am sure that your God despises you, is ashamed of you, and would burn you in hell, just as the IDF is doing to you now”.
The ‘tribe of Amalek’ today is quoted widely. (King Saul, in the first Book of Samuel, commands Samuel to kill every person of the Amalekites: “Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”).
As the Israeli mood swings Biblical, so the global majority’s anger rises. And so Muslims come to see the crisis as an uncompromising civilisational war — The West versus ‘us’.
The concomitant two conferences — the Arab League and the OIC (held concurrently in Riyadh) — underlined the complete collapse of “Israel’s” image across the Islamic world. The outpouring of anger and passion was palpable, and is metamorphosing new global politics.
In the West, the anger is splintering mainstream political structures, and causing wide convulsion. Global protests are massive.
Thus, as “Israel” swings towards a Biblical “Greater Israel”, the Islamic world turns increasingly uncompromising. Though the conferences did not agree on any action-plan, the image of President Raisi sitting next to MbS; and that both Presidents Erdogan and Assad were co-mingling at the conference, was arresting.
The strategic implication is stark: Israelis now abjure the risks of living with Muslims, and the sentiment is fully reciprocated by Palestinians towards Hebraic zealotry. The old paradigm for a political solution is rendered obsolete.
The Cradle | November 16, 2023
At least 50 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured on 15 November after the Israeli army targeted a mosque in the besieged Gaza Strip, WAFA news agency reports.
The attack on the Sabra neighborhood was conducted during a congressional prayer when the mosque was full of Palestinian worshippers.
Israel has conducted similar attacks on places of worship since its inception; in this war alone, multiple Mosques and churches have been leveled, including ones dating back centuries.
On 20 October, the Israeli army destroyed the Grand Al-Omari Mosque in Jabalia, dating back to the 7th century; it was one of the largest mosques in Palestine.
Hours before the Al-Omari bombing, the Israeli army targeted and destroyed the Church of Saint Porphyrios in Gaza, the third oldest church in the world.
“We condemn this unconscionable attack on a sacred compound and call upon the world community to enforce protections in Gaza for sanctuaries of refuge, including hospitals, schools, and houses of worship,” World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Jerry Pillay said in response to the bombing of the 1,400-year-old structure.
“Our prayers go out for healing to all those wounded, along with our condolences to Patriarch Theophilos II and all our Greek Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ,” Pillay added.
Outside of Gaza, Israel launched an airstrike against the Al-Ansar mosque in Jenin refugee camp, West Bank, on 22 October.
An Israeli statement justifying the Al-Ansar Mosque attack said it was a“joint operation between the army and the Shin Bet” and that the strike targeted an “underground terrorist route.”
This has been a line used by Israel to justify their attacks on not only multiple places of worship but also civilian residences and hospitals.
As of 15 November, 11,470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, of whom are 4,707 children, 3,155 women, and 686 elderly.
MEMO | November 14, 2023
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said as many as 3,141 Palestinian students have been killed by Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since 7 October, along with 130 teachers and administrators.
In a statement, the PCBS said 3,117 Palestinian students were killed in the Gaza Strip between 7 October and 11 November while 24 students were killed in the West Bank. A further 4,863 have been injured during this period; 4,613 of them in the Gaza Strip and 250 in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli occupation forces have also arrested 67 students, all of them from the West Bank, during that period.
As many as 403 teachers and administrators were wounded by the Israeli raids on the besieged Gaza Strip while more than 40 teachers and administrators were arrested in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli warplanes have purposefully targeted 239 government schools in the Gaza Strip with air strikes, causing severe destruction to 45 schools while 50 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) have been attacked. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army has attacked 27 government schools, the PCBS report found.
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | November 9, 2023
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party in the ruling right-wing coalition, demanded Tel Aviv impose security zones around illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday. The letter Smotrich has sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant includes an insistence that Palestinians be kept away during the ongoing olive harvest season.
This follows a pattern of occupying forces and settlers exploiting the war on Gaza as an opportunity to further cut Palestinian towns, cities, and villages off from each other via more military checkpoints, cement blocks, iron gates, and earth mounds.
“I demand that a written directive be issued immediately by the political echelon to the Israel Forces to create those wide security zones around the settlements and roads and to prevent Arabs from approaching them… including for the olive harvest,” Smotrich’s letter reads.
Murders of Palestinians by settlers and soldiers alike in the West Bank are concurrently soaring while apartheid Israel concurrently wages its unprecedented bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip, killing thousands of civilians and children.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured, in the West Bank since the October 7th Hamas attack on southern Israel. According to UNICEF, dozens of children have been killed and injured in the West Bank during the past month.
On October 28th, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, the 40-year-old wild herbs vendor, was shot in the chest by a settler and murdered in front of his wife, children, and other relatives while the Israeli military stood by and watched.
Bilal and his family were harvesting olives on land he inherited from his father, just less than a dozen miles south of Nablus, in the village of al-Sawiya. The village is encircled by Jewish-only colonies, or illegal settlements, Palestinian residents are only able to build and work on five percent of the 12,000 dunums that they own.
The area has been terrorized for years by the settlers. Nihad Arar, the village council head, told Al Jazeera, “[They] cut down our trees, burn our farms, steal our olives, and are known to assault Palestinians inside their homes and on their own property.”
As the war on Gaza rages, settler attacks and murders on Palestinians, including those working their olive groves during the prime harvest month of October have significantly escalated.
Mohammed Wadi, whose father and brother were shot dead by settlers during a funeral procession for three Palestinian olive growers killed by settlers a day earlier, told Reuters that although the settlers used to aim low at Palestinians in the past, “[n]ow, they shoot to kill.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that, since the October 7th Hamas attack and the war on Gaza began, settler attacks on Palestinians have more than doubled.
For Palestinians, prior to this month, this year was already one of the deadliest on record. Before the end of September, more than 220 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, including over three dozen children. That figure included 187 people who were murdered in the occupied territories and another 37 killed – mostly amidst a smaller bombing campaign – in the Gaza Strip.
In March, Smotrich proclaimed that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian people.” His party, along with National Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, support massive settlement expansion and ultimately the complete annexation of the West Bank. Additionally, Smotrich has endorsed illegal collective punishment policies and called for “wiping out” the entire Palestinian village of Huwwara earlier this year.
With Smotrich at the helm, approving new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes, the Netanyahu coalition has set records for illegal settlement construction this year.
As Mondoweiss explains, “Smotrich holds sway over two ministries — the first is the Finance Ministry, for which he is directly responsible given his role as Finance Minister, and the other is a new position in the Defense Ministry, essentially making him the governor of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and most crucially making him responsible for settlement in the West Bank.”
Ben-Gvir announced last month that Tel Aviv would purchase and distribute 10,000 assault rifles to Israeli citizens including within the West Bank’s illegal settlements. According to Axios, the US State Department is set to approve a $34 million sale of 24,000 M-16 semiautomatic and automatic rifles after reportedly receiving assurances from Tel Aviv that the weapons will not be provided to settlers.
It is not at all clear if Ben-Gvir will hold to that promise, as he has personally distributed hundreds of rifles to settlers in recent weeks.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
The Cradle | October 30, 2023
Dozens of Israeli army vehicles, bulldozers, and drones wreaked havoc to the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on 30 October during an early morning raid that saw Palestinian resistance fighters powerfully confront the invading forces.
Following the devastating incursion, the Jenin Brigades issued a statement confirming that their fighters drove off the Israeli army, damaging at least 30 Israeli armored vehicles and leaving an unknown number of Israeli soldiers dead.
For its part, the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least four Palestinians were killed during the clashes in Jenin. About 120 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October, with nearly 2,000 injured.
The Israeli forces besieged the rebellious city from the early hours of Monday, attacking Jenin Governmental Hospital, dropping bombs on residential buildings, destroying streets leading up to the adjacent refugee camp, placing dirt mounds to separate the camp from the city, and bulldozing major landmarks.
Mass arrest campaigns also continued across the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, as Tel Aviv targeted the Dheisheh camp, Janata, Nahalin, and Beit Fajjar in the Bethlehem district, as well as Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus.
At least 60 Palestinians were detained, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Over 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October, as Israel has launched nightly arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank. At least 4,000 laborers from Gaza have also been detained, pushing the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons past 10,000.
International Solidarity Movement | October 15, 2023
EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION
Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.
45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.
These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.
Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel. No help comes from the P.A.
SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?
After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.
Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.
Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.
The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.
THE LUCKY ONES
We were told that around 1,500 migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.
We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:
Hashim Barawi (killed)
Suliman Al Atar (killed)
Hary Al Masry (location unknown)
Sahel AL Masry
Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)
Talal Warshasha (injured)
The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.
NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION
The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”
They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?
One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.
Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.
I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.
IMEMC | OCTOBER 14, 2023
On Saturday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian child in Zeita town, north of Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers killed Omar Ahmad Abdul-Rahman Asmar, 15, after shooting him with live fire.
The child was among many wounded Palestinians during protests that took place after several Israeli army vehicles invaded the town.
His death brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire in Tulkarem on Friday and Saturday to six, in addition to dozens of injuries.
On Saturday dawn, Israeli soldiers killed Mahmoud Shehada, 27, injured three, including one who suffered serious wounds, and abducted six in Jericho, in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank.
Also at dawn, Israeli soldiers killed a young Palestinian man, Abdul-Rahman Ribhi Al-Ammouri, in a car near Al-Isawiya town junction, northeast of the occupied Palestinian capital Jerusalem, in the West Bank.
On Saturday dawn, as the Israeli army continued to fire hundreds of missiles and shells at homes and buildings in the Gaza Strip, including a busy marker in the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The Health Ministry has confirmed that the extensive Israeli bombing Saturday has killed 315 Palestinians, including 90 children, and injured 1788, mainly women and children.
It added that 2215 Palestinians, including 724 children and 458 women, have been killed, and 8714 Palestinians, including 2450 children and 1536 women, have been injured as the Israeli onslaught on Gaza entered its eighth day.
On Friday, the soldiers killed fifteen Palestinians, including two children, in several parts of the occupied West Bank Friday.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Paul J. Balles | March 8, 2010
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
Aletho News 