Over 1,000 Palestinians detained as Israeli forces tighten grip on West Bank’s Tulkarm city
Israeli forces detain Palestinians following an explosion in Tulkarm, West Bank, on September 11, 2025. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | September 12, 2025
Israeli forces have detained more than 1,000 Palestinians in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm as part of a sweeping operation now in its second day, according to local officials, Anadolu reports.
Troops sealed off the city’s main entrances, stormed homes, shops and cafes, and forced young men into lines for field interrogations. Witnesses said soldiers vandalized property, seized surveillance recordings and deployed heavy machinery, including a bulldozer, in the city center.
Abdullah Kamil, governor of Tulkarm, said Friday the campaign amounted to “collective punishment” and called on the international community and rights groups to step in, warning of dire humanitarian consequences.
Israeli media said the clampdown followed a roadside bomb that struck a Panther armored vehicle near the Nitzanei Oz checkpoint on Thursday, lightly wounding two soldiers.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, and Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they detonated a large explosive charge against Israeli forces near the checkpoint.
Tulkarm has become a flashpoint in the army’s months-long campaign across the northern West Bank, where near-daily raids have escalated since the start of the Gaza war.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, at least 1,020 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal. It demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Armed Settler Militia Terrorizes Ibziq, Assaults ISM Volunteers
International Solidarity Movement | August 18, 2025
On the night of August 11th, two ISM volunteers were assaulted, beaten, and robbed by a mob of at least eight armed settlers dressed in full military-style uniforms in the rural shepherding village of Ibziq. The volunteers were engaged in protective presence, which includes documenting illegal intrusions into Palestinian communities and recording and opposing intimidation, threats, and attacks led by Zionist militias against Palestinians across the Jordan Valley.
The settler militia entered the remote village around 7PM in dune buggy-style military vehicles, wearing helmets and balaclavas, and carrying assault rifles. The militia canvassed the village for over an hour, trespassing into community school grounds and upon critical water infrastructure before moving on to block Palestinian traffic and terrorize local residents with threats of arson and theft.
When the settler militia directly entered a Palestinian family’s home, the ISM volunteers—both U.S. citizens, one residing in Jerusalem and the other in Liverpool, UK—intervened by approaching the settlers and stating the militia were illegally encroaching upon Palestinian lands, violating the human rights of Palestinians, and contravening international law.
Although the volunteers had their hands up to indicate that they were unarmed and nonviolent, the militia members pinned one ISM volunteer to the ground and he was repeatedly beaten. Amidst the thrashing, settlers also kicked sand and dirt into the volunteer’s face and eyes multiple times. When the second volunteer began filming, several members of the settler militia turned their rifles on him.
The ISM volunteer recording was held at gunpoint, ordered to his knees, and told he would be shot if he did not obey commands. The militia deliberately aimed laser targeting sights at the volunteer’s genitals, before physically forcing him to the ground and wrenching his arm wrenched behind his back. While held at gunpoint, he was elbowed in the back of the head after his phone was stolen.
Before leaving, the settler militia issued a final direct threat to the Palestinian family, shouting that the village would be attacked and burned down if they did not leave. According to one member of the family, the settlers “threatened to burn us alive.” Both volunteers were evacuated by a Red Crescent ambulance and treated at a nearby hospital in Tubas. Each were later released in stable condition and subsequently returned to Ibziq to resume on-the-ground protective presence with ISM.
According to the local community, the attack was perpetrated by a settler militia rather than active-duty military. However, these settler militias operate alongside and as part of the army, particularly when settlers are in uniform wielding the power and mandate of the state. In Ibziq, the active duty military has also collaborated with settlers on a number of attacks over the last month.
Notably, this assault is part of a broader wave of settler colonial violence and militia aggression sweeping across the occupied West Bank. At present, Palestinian and Bedouin communities are being systematically harassed, attacked, arrested, displaced, and murdered. Settler militia operatives are operating with the full knowledge—and support and protection—of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Zionist apartheid regime. In many cases, including this one, settler militia are both afforded impunity and indistinguishable from official IOF soldiers and army units. They are given military vehicles, surveillance equipment, and weapons to collectively intimidate, terrorize, and dispossess Palestinian communities.
Markedly, this is neither an isolated case nor a recent phenomena. The occupied West Bank is however seeing a sharp escalation in racialized hostilities and frontier violence, where armed settlers, emboldened by Israeli policy and army support, are carrying out coordinated attacks on Palestinian life and land. Bedouin communities in particular face systemic racism, militarized demolitions, nighttime raids, and arson attacks, which are all part of a settler colonial project aimed at annexation and the elimination of Palestinian heritage, history, and presence.
ISM calls on international media, human rights organizations, and members of civil society to publicly denounce and take concrete action against the violence and crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli apartheid regime. The settler militia attack in Ibziq is but one of countless examples of how Palestinian civilians and entire villages continue to be subjected to an illegal occupation, systemic terror, compounding trauma, and an intensifying colonial war that is being waged by the Zionist movement.
How Western media aids Israel’s genocide and targeted killing of journalists in Gaza
Israel and the end of The Times
By Marzieh Hashemi | Press TV | August 12, 2025
Never in the history of mankind have human beings witnessed a genocide in real time, in the way we are watching what is unfolding in Gaza today.
We have seen people being sniped, hospitals being bulldozed, refugees in tents being burned alive, the starvation of the population, and so much more, on our screens.
Most of what we are witnessing is due to the tireless and courageous commitment of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who know that they can be killed at any time by the regime, but despite this, continue to show us the reality of what’s happening on the ground in Gaza.
It is an extremely difficult job for them; however, the streaming of videos and providing live coverage have finally helped change the narrative on Palestine and its occupation globally.
Before this latest round of genocide, no matter the type of brutality and oppression that Palestinians endured, they would be confronted with comments such as “Israel has the right to defend itself” or “the Israelis have no choice because of Hamas’ missiles raining down upon the innocent Israeli population.”
But now, the greatest fear of the Israeli regime is coming to fruition. Zionists are losing control of the narrative. The truth has been seeping out, one war crime after another. People around the world have awakened and many no longer believe in the hasbara version of events.
The child-murdering regime tried to prevent this from happening. Thus, from the very beginning of this latest round of genocidal war against the Palestinian people, international journalists were not allowed by the Israeli regime to enter Gaza.
The regime gave the excuse of protecting the journalists’ safety, but the reality is that it did not want the real story of what is happening in Gaza to be exposed.
Thus, the primary responsibility of showing the reality on the ground fell on the backs of Palestinian journalists, whom the Israeli regime continues to try to control, discredit or silence.
Due to this, the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists by the regime has been ruthless and has intensified with time.
The cold-blooded assassinations of journalists have been taken to a whole new level in Gaza. Journalists have never been targeted in the way they are today.
As of the writing of this article, 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza, with the latest five murders taking place just on Sunday night. A tent housing Al Jazeera journalists was deliberately targeted by the regime, killing all five members of the crew. Israel has taken responsibility for the assassinations, saying that the tent housed a “Hamas cell.”
This is the action of a regime to which Western powers have given impunity. Israel is not sanctioned due to killing babies in incubators. It is not even held accountable for starving a whole population of people. It is not pressured in any way.
Thus, during the last 22 months, we have seen the targeting of journalists expand throughout the region, including the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, where the main news building of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) was targeted, killing three people.
Why? Because it can. It is not held accountable. If any condemnations are made, they are simply some verbal jargon on the international level, resulting in no consequences for the regime to stop its illegal actions.
Thus, the Western political machine and its corporate media are totally complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. One day after the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, many Western outlets such as BBC, Reuters, and Fox News repeated Israeli accusations that Anas was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell or that he once worked for Hamas’ media office.
Instead of showing its outrage at the targeting of fellow journalists, the BBC, which prides itself on being the largest broadcast corporation in the world, simply repeated Israeli hasbara.
This is the reason 238 journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past 22 months and their colleagues in Western countries have done nothing about it or have instead magnified the lies of the Zionist regime. These so-called journalists are toeing the line of the Zionists.
Why haven’t the BBC, Reuters, New York Times or other media entities called Israel out for preventing them from sending journalists to Gaza?
Why try to demonize the messenger who has just been assassinated, unless you too, like the Israeli regime, want to keep the message from getting out?
Is the exposure of the real narrative of Palestine and Israel fatal for you too? You are all complicit in genocide and your efforts to stifle the truth are too late, as too many people have awakened.
The narrative has changed. Increasingly more people are realizing that Palestine was not a land without a people, as they had been taught, nor had Palestinians agreed upon their land being taken.
There was a Nakba that has never ended and all parties complicit in it are being exposed, as the world awakens and shows its disdain for genocide and its supporters.
Marzieh Hashemi is a US-born, Iran-based journalist, commentator and documentary filmmaker.
Palestinian Activist Recorded His Own Murder, Israel Still Released His Killer
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | August 10, 2025
A Palestinian activist featured in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” recorded his murder by an Israeli settler. The killer was freed by an Israeli court, arguing there was a lack of evidence.
On Sunday, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a video record by Awda Hadalin of the moment he was shot and killed by Yinon Levi. There are two additional videos that show Levi point his gun and shoot Hadalin before he falls to the ground.
Director of “No Other Land,” Yuval Abraham, said the three videos leave no doubt that Levi murdered Hadalin. “There is no room for doubt. Yinon Levi killed Uda Hadalin in front of the cameras, and an entire system of Jewish superiority turned him from a perpetrator into a victim and punished the village residents instead of punishing him,” he wrote on X.
The day after the killing, an Israeli court accepted Levi’s assertion he was acting in “self-defense” and granted him house arrest. There is no evidence in the video that Levi was in danger.
He was then released from house arrest after a judge ruled the evidence backed his self-defense claim.
Israel refused to give Hadalin’s body to his family to allow for a funeral for over a week. Tel Aviv attempted to force the family to agree to limit his funeral to 15 people before giving his body to relatives. After ten days, the Israeli High Court ordered the release of Hadalin’s body.
Several members of Hadalin’s family and mourners were arrested by Israeli occupation forces. Additionally, the American-Italian nurse who attempted to provide life-saving care to Hadalin was arrested and then deported. “They don’t want people to feel comfortable helping Palestinians,” they told The Intercept.
Report: Mass Abductions, Torture, Enforced Disappearances
IMEMC | August 4, 2025
A joint report issued by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association has revealed a serious escalation in the mass abduction of Palestinians and accompanying violations since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023.
According to the report, approximately 18,500 Palestinians have been abducted across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since the genocide began, part of a systematic campaign targeting civilians under the pretext of security operations.
Women and Children Among the Abducted
The number of women abducted has reached around 570, including individuals from Gaza, the West Bank, and the 1948-occupied territories.
This figure excludes dozens of women forcibly disappeared from Gaza, where access to information is still obstructed.
In parallel, at least 1,500 children have been abducted across the West Bank, prompting alarm from human rights organizations over breaches of international conventions protecting minors.
Journalists Silenced Through Detention
More than 194 journalists have been abducted, with 49 still imprisoned. Many of these cases are viewed as attempts to suppress documentation of abuses and silence independent reporting.
Torture, Destruction, and Human Shield Tactics
The report highlights a pattern of grave abuse accompanying abduction operations:
- Beatings and torture
- Threats against abductees and their families
- Systematic invasions and violations, including home demolitions
- Seizure of vehicles, personal belongings, and valuables
- Destruction of infrastructure in refugee camps, notably in Jenin and Tulkarem
- Use of civilians, including children and family members, as human shields, and hostages
Mass Abductions and Enforced Disappearances
The wave of abductions includes individuals taken from their homes, at military roadblocks, coerced into surrender under duress after the army abducted members of their families and held them as hostages.
Thousands of Gaza workers present in the 1948-occupied areas with legal permits were abducted, alongside hundreds from Gaza who were in the West Bank for medical treatment, or for work.
Field executions have also been reported, including among family members of detainees.
Deaths in Custody and Withheld Remains
Since October 7, at least 75 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody, with 46 confirmed as Gaza detainees.
Many others remain forcibly disappeared, their identities and causes of death unacknowledged.
Israel continues to hold the bodies of 72 prisoners, bringing the total number of withheld martyrs to 83.
Detainee Statistics – July 2025
As of July 2025, the total number of Palestinians imprisoned stands at 10,800, the highest recorded since the Second Intifada. This figure excludes individuals held in prison camps run by the Israeli army.
Administrative and “Unlawful Combatant” Detainees: July 2025
As of early July 2025, the number of administrative detainees held by Israeli authorities has reached 3,629, the highest recorded figure to date.
This category, which allows for detention without charge or trial, now exceeds all other classifications, including those formally indicted, sentenced, or labeled as “unlawful combatants.”
The number of detainees classified as “unlawful combatants” stands at 2,454, though this figure does not include most Gaza detainees held in Israeli military camps.
This is the largest documented count since the onset of Israel’s genocidal campaign. The classification also encompasses Arab detainees from Lebanon and Syria.
- These figures exclude individuals subjected to enforced disappearance or held in Israeli military camps, particularly from Gaza.
- These figures encompass both those still held and those who were later released. The numbers remain fluid due to ongoing abduction campaigns.
- Due to ongoing genocide, destruction and siege in Gaza, data regarding the number of detainees from the costal enclave is still scarce.
- By mid-December of 2024, the number of detainees who were abducted in the Gaza Strip was estimated to be 3,436.
Zionism without borders: Annexation and normalization as tools of Arab subjugation
By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | August 1, 2025
Four weeks after Israel signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain on 15 September 2020, Tel Aviv’s Higher Planning Council approved 4,948 new settler units in the occupied West Bank. No public fanfare.
No tanks rolled in – just signatures authorizing another layer of occupation. The first wave of expansion advanced quietly, legitimized by the language of “peace.”
This sequencing deliberately reflects the core logic of Zionist expansion: Normalize when the region submits, colonize when the world blinks.
Where possible, the occupation state’s army conquers land directly. Where resistance or scrutiny makes that unfeasible, the occupation government builds a web of security pacts, trade routes, and intelligence partnerships that extend its reach without a single uniformed soldier. This dual formula, territorial conquest and hegemonic integration, has underpinned Israeli strategy since 1967, and today stretches unimpeded from the Jordan Valley to the Atlantic coast.
Two paths, one destination
“Greater Israel” represents the settler-colonial ambition to annex, settle, and absorb land across historic Palestine and beyond. It is rooted in the Zionist vision of Jewish dominion over the so-called “biblical Land of Israel.” In contrast, “Great Israel” describes the imperial design to dominate the surrounding region through proxies, economic leverage, and security alignments.
Where occupation is costly, Tel Aviv turns to influence. Through deals, destabilization, or coercion, it reshapes the sovereignty of its neighbors. Greater Israel devours land. Great Israel neutralizes independence. Together, they are one project.
Zionist literature makes this plain. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, demanded sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan – “Greater Israel on both sides of the Jordan River” – and rejected compromise with Arabs. In The Iron Wall (1923), he declared that only an unyielding Jewish force could compel Arab acquiescence:
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population.”
The occupation state’s first prime minister and Labor Zionist leader, David Ben-Gurion, publicly accepted a partition plan in 1937, but privately described it as “not the end but the beginning.” In a letter to his son, he wrote that a Jewish state on part of the land would strengthen the Zionist project and serve as a platform to “redeem the entire country.” In a June 1938 meeting of the Jewish Agency executive, he said:
“After the formation of a large army … we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
Early Zionist leaders did not view borders as final, but as phases. During its first two decades, Israel lacked the military strength or western backing to expand beyond its 1949 borders. Direct confrontation with Arab states risked catastrophe. Instead, Tel Aviv pioneered a subtler doctrine of peripheral infiltration.
Through the “periphery doctrine,” it cultivated covert ties with non-Arab states and oppressed minorities – Shah-era Iran, Turkiye, Kurdish groups in Iraq, and Christian separatists in Sudan. This strategy sowed chaos among Israel’s Arab rivals while embedding Israeli influence in strategic corners of West Asia and Africa. Most recently, the occupation state has made overtures to Druze communities in southern Syria, seeking to replicate this strategy amid renewed instability.
The corridor to colonization
Israel’s integration into the Arab world is now deeper than ever before. Through normalization, Tel Aviv has converted former enemies into partners economically, diplomatically, and militarily. While Egypt and Jordan first formalized ties through Camp David and Wadi Araba, it was the Abraham Accords that opened the floodgates. What followed was a deluge of tech deals, weapons transfers, and commercial partnerships linking the occupation state to the Persian Gulf.
By 2023, Israel’s trade with the UAE had reached $3 billion annually. That figure rose by 11 percent the following year, even as Israel waged genocide in Gaza. Israeli Consul General Liron Zaslansky described trade relations between Abu Dhabi and Israel as “growing, so that we ended 2024 at $3.24 billion, excluding software and services.”
In 2022, Morocco purchased $500 million worth of Israeli Barak MX air defense systems. Rabat also partnered with BlueBird, an Israeli drone firm, to become the first UAV manufacturer in West Asia and North Africa.
This has created a “corridor of influence” that grants Tel Aviv access to new markets, air and sea routes, and intelligence spaces stretching from Casablanca to Khor Fakkan.
On the ground, the war continues
While trade flourishes, colonization accelerates. In 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government approved 12,855 settler homes – a record for any six-month period. More than 700,000 settlers now occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That figure has grown sevenfold since the early 1990s.
In May 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed cabinet approval for the construction of 22 new West Bank settlements, including multiple previously unauthorized outposts. Katz framed the move as necessary to “strengthen our hold on Judea and Samaria” and to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
These settlements are not arbitrary. They are connected by Jewish-only bypass roads, fortified by the occupation army, and strategically designed to fragment the occupied West Bank into isolated Palestinian enclaves. This is de facto annexation, defined by a matrix of irreversible facts that eliminates the territorial basis for any future Palestinian state, while avoiding the international fallout of formal annexation.
The “logic” of expansion has also spilled beyond Palestine. In Syria, Tel Aviv now occupies 250 square kilometers across Quneitra, Rural Damascus, and Deraa – territory seized during the collapse of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government by Al-Qaeda rooted terrorists – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – who now occupy the seat of power in Damascus. HTS was under the leadership of former ISIS chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Upon ousting Assad, Julani began using his government name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and became the de facto president of Syria.
In Lebanon, Israeli forces maintain a presence over 30–40 square kilometers, including Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba Hills, and the northern half of Ghajar. Additional outposts and buffer zones stretch along the so-called Blue Line.
Occupation rebranded
Israel’s expansion today is no longer confined to bulldozers and soldiers; it is mediated through trade, tech, and treaties. But make no mistake: normalization has not replaced occupation. It has enabled and accelerated it.
Every Emirati deal, every Moroccan drone line, every Bahraini handshake fuels Tel Aviv’s capacity to deepen its military presence and Judaize more land. Plans are underway to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights and to deploy armored units along the demilitarized zone.
The ripple effects are already destabilizing the region. Egypt has begun constructing a concrete wall on its border with Gaza to prepare for mass displacement or military spillover. Jordan faces existential peril in the Jordan Valley, where settler expansion is displacing Bedouin communities and draining natural aquifers. Syria and Lebanon remain hemmed in by fortified Israeli positions, with both countries facing increasing pressure from Washington to normalize relations.
Greater Israel devours Arab land. Great Israel colonizes Arab decision-making. One swallows borders. The other swallows sovereignty.
Israelis committing genocide in Gaza, with US ‘complicit’: Mearsheimer
MEMO | July 31, 2025
John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said that “the Israelis are executing a genocide in Gaza,” adding that the US is “complicit in that genocide,” Anadolu reports.
What is happening in Gaza is a systematic effort by Israel to dismantle the Palestinian national identity, Mearsheimer said in an interview with media personality Tucker Carlson published on Wednesday.
He added that Israel is targeting Palestinians specifically as a group, aiming not only to kill large numbers but also to erase their identity as a people.
Mearsheimer believed that the Israelis have long aimed to expel the Palestinian population from what they consider “Greater Israel.”
“If you look at Greater Israel, this includes the Israel that was created in 1948 and the occupied territories. This is the West Bank, Gaza, and what we call the Green Line Israel. That’s Greater Israel,” the scholar said.
“October 7th happens, and what the Israelis see is an excellent opportunity for ethnic cleansing. And they make this clear.
“In other words, it’s an excellent opportunity to go to war in Gaza and drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and solve that demographic problem that they face,” he added.
Israel also carried out large-scale ethnic cleansings in the region in 1948 and 1967, and Mearsheimer described the latest campaign in Gaza as “the third attempt at a massive ethnic cleansing.”
The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians. The relentless bombardment has devastated the enclave and led to food shortages.
Israel wants to ensure that its neighbors are ‘weak’
One of Israel’s goals is also to ensure that its neighbors are “weak,” said Mearsheimer, noting that “that means breaking them apart, if you can, and keeping them broken.”
He said the ethnic cleansing is a topic “that the Zionists talked about from the get-go, and they talked about extensively because there is no way they could create a Greater Israel without doing massive ethnic cleansing.”
David Ben Gurion, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and other prominent Zionist leaders are fully aware that achieving their goals would require doing “horrible things” to the Palestinians, he said.
The scholar highlighted that those Zionist leaders acknowledged this and even stated openly that they did not blame the Palestinians at all for resisting the actions planned by Jews arriving from Europe.
“They fully understood that they were stealing their land. And they fully understood that it made perfect sense for the Palestinians to resist, which of course they did,” Mearsheimer noted.
“They (Israel) start with the goal of ethnic cleansing. I don’t believe they want to murder all of the Palestinians in Gaza.
“They simply want to drive them out. But the problem is they don’t leave. And then the question is, what do you do? And what they do is they continue to up the attacks, increase the attacks, (and) kill more and more people in the hope that they will drive them out,” he added.
Israel lobby in US
Mearsheimer stressed that when a major power like the US has conflicting interests with another country, it prioritizes its own, following an “America first” approach. However, regarding Israel, it’s the opposite — it is “Israel first,” he stated.
Washington’s policy in the Middle East clearly reflects this, with plenty of evidence to support it, the scholar underscored.
Mearsheimer, who is also the co-author of the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, said that the reason for this is due to the Israel lobby in the US.
“I think the lobby is an incredibly powerful interest group, and I’m choosing my words carefully. It has awesome power, and it basically is in a position where it can profoundly influence US foreign policy in the Middle East. And indeed, it affects foreign policy outside of the Middle East.
“But when it comes to the Middle East, and again, the Palestinian issue in particular, it has awesome power. And there’s no president who is willing to buck the lobby,” he added.
Settlers kill Palestinian in Masafer Yatta
International Solidarity Movement – Palestine | July 28, 2025
Israeli settlers murdered activist and dear friend Awda Hathaleen and critically injured Ahmad Hathaleen today during a settler invasion on the village of Umm al-Khair. Another member of the community, Ibrahim Al-Faqir also died as a result of a severe stroke during the attack.
The deadly attack took place after illegal Israeli settlers, including internationally sanctioned settler Yinon Levi, invaded the Bedouin village, located in the Masafer Yatta region. They were using an excavator in an attempt to destroy Palestinian infrastructure, including the communities’ water pipes. When residents gathered to stop the demolition, the excavator intentionally hit Ahmad in the head, causing serious injury and loss of consciousness.
Eyewitnesses said Levi then shot Awda in the chest causing critical injuries. He was evacuated to the Soroka Medical Center, where he was pronounce dead on arrival. A relative of Awda confirmed his death to the International Solidarity Movement.
Israeli forces later arrived at the scene, arresting 7 Palestinians and 2 internationals at the request of Levi.
Levi is under international sactions for crimes against Palestinian communities. In January of this year, Donald Trump reversed US sanctions on Levi and other settlers. Israel has never brought criminal proceedings against him despite years of violence and terrorizing Palesitian communties.
Awda, 31 years old, was a teaching staff member at al-Saray’a Secondary School in the Bedouin desert of Masafer Yatta. He was a father of three children, the eldest of whom is 6 years old.
On behalf of his community, Awda was relentless in his pursuit to tell the world of Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing and violence against the people of Umm al-Khair, including the confiscation of land, choking of water supplies and poisoning of trees and livestock.
For many years the ISM has stood in solidarity with the Bedouin community in Masafer Yatta, who live under constant threat of ethnic cleansing. Umm al-Khair is one of the many villages in Area C under total Israeli control, meaning almost every structure has a demolition order. Meanwhile Israel provides the neighbouring illegal settlement of Carmel with running water from pipes built over Umm al-Khair land. An ISM spokesperson said: “Awda was an incredibly kind friend and couragous member of his community. He was forced to live his short life under the constant threat of violence and displacement, yet he never gave up hope for justice and a free Palestine.”
In the hours before he was killed, Awda sent an urgent call to action, “If they cut the pipe the community here will literally be without a drop of water”. The international community must now take up Awda’s call to take action to protect the village of Umm al-Khair and the residents of the wider Masafer Yatta region against Israel’s escalating campaign of ethnic cleansing. Settlers generally walk free, and continue to harass Palestinian communities. Sanctions against individual violent settlers are not enough. The international community must demand accountability.
Beyond Gaza’s shadow: The unseen war for the West Bank’s future
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 24, 2025
Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the occupied West Bank. The latest such provocations consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron (Al-Khalil) municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it granted these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body.
Though all Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank.
Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshipers kneeling for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, where the Israeli army brutally cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians.
Yet, the Israeli Shamgar Commission, tasked with investigating the massacre, resolved in 1994 that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, was to be grotesquely divided: 63 per cent allocated to Jewish worshipers and a mere 37 per cent to Palestinian Muslims.
Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, solely for exclusive settler use.
The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as “historic and unprecedented,” is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly into the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety.
But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements.
Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressures and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the 7 October 2023, assault nor the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures.
In the first year of the war, over 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted Israeli military campaigns.
Israel’s overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions, and the cruel suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli work market for survival.
This insidious plan also explicitly targeted all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there.
In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of confronting the “broader Iran terror axis.” Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza. By mid-July 2025, over 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, while at least 15 were murdered by settlers.
As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralised strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement constructions and the brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards.
Israel’s actions in the West Bank were not a sudden deviation but consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme. This includes a plan solidified by the Israeli Knesset in 2020 that allowed Israel to officially annex the West Bank. Israel’s ultimate goal has always been to confine the majority of Palestinians into Bantustan-like enclaves, while asserting full control over the vast majority of the region.
In August 2023, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir articulated this sinister vision: “My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank) is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs.”
More coercive measures swiftly followed, including Knesset laws to significantly curtail UNRWA operations, and further legislation to entrench de facto annexation. Last May, Smotrich audaciously announced 22 more settlements. On 2 July 14 Israeli ministers made a public call on Netanyahu to immediately annex the West Bank.
In fact, every action Israel has undertaken, especially since the commencement of its devastating genocide in Gaza, has been carefully calculated to culminate in the irreversible annexation of the West Bank – a process that would inevitably be followed by declaring native inhabitants persona non grata in their own homeland.
This level of systemic pressure and oppression will ultimately lead to a popular explosion. Though suppressed by the brutality of the Israeli army, the terror of armed settlers, and the suppressive actions of the Palestinian Authority, the breaking point is fast approaching.
Those in the West who preach hollow calls for calm and de-escalation must understand the region is hurtling towards the brink. Neither diplomatic platitudes nor sterile press releases will suffice to avert the catastrophe. They are advised to act decisively against Israel’s destructive policies, and they must act immediately.
Palestinian factions reject Israeli vote on West Bank sovereignty
Al Mayadeen | July 23, 2025
Palestinian resistance factions strongly condemned the Israeli Knesset’s vote on Wednesday in favor of a bill to impose “Israeli sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank and Jordan Valley, calling it a dangerous escalation and a blatant violation of international law.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, described the Knesset’s approval of the bill as “null and void,” stressing that the decision had no legitimacy and constituted a direct challenge to international resolutions. In a statement, Hamas urged Palestinians in the West Bank to unite and escalate resistance “in all its forms” to thwart the occupation’s plans to annex the territory.
Formalization of control expands settler-colonialism
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) warned that while the occupation already exerts de facto control over the territory, the formalization of this through legislation strengthens its colonial grip, expands the settler-colonial and Judaization project, and advances a policy of ghettoization and forced displacement.
The PFLP emphasized that unity and resistance remain the only path to confront what it described as a “dangerous scheme,” equating its severity to the genocidal campaign waged by the Israeli occupation in Gaza.
The Palestinian Resistance Committees said the Knesset vote further exposes the colonial nature of the Israeli entity, adding that “the enemy’s ambitions extend beyond Palestine and target the entire region.” The committees called on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, al-Quds, and the territories occupied in 1948 to “take the initiative, launch a popular revolution, and ignite a widespread intifada to thwart Zionist schemes.”
‘Legally and morally void’
Fatah also rejected the bill “categorically,” calling it legally and morally void. In its statement, the movement reaffirmed that the West Bank, including East al-Quds, is occupied Palestinian land, and the Israeli occupation has no legal authority to impose sovereignty over it under any pretext.
Fatah urged the international community, particularly the United Nations and the European Union, to support a Palestinian legal campaign before the International Court of Justice and other international legal bodies. The movement also called for full recognition of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East al-Quds as its capital, as a clear political response to annexation efforts.
PA condemns Knesset decision
Palestinian Authority official and Deputy President Hussein al-Sheikh also condemned the Knesset’s move, calling it “a direct assault on the rights of the Palestinian people and a serious escalation that undermines peace prospects and the two-state solution.”
Al-Sheikh described the unilateral Israeli measures as flagrant violations of international law and global consensus, urging states worldwide to recognize the State of Palestine and denounce the Knesset’s decision.
The bill passed with 71 votes in favor and 13 opposed. While it carries no binding legal effect, the legislation asserts that the West Bank and Jordan Valley are “an inseparable part of the historic homeland of the Jewish people” and calls for “strategic steps” to solidify this so-called historical right in pursuit of Israeli “national security.”
Red states back Israeli annexation of West Bank
Several Republican-led states in the US have moved forward with legislation compelling the official use of the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the West Bank, following a bill passed in Arkansas last month.
The legislative push is part of a broader effort to support the annexation of occupied Palestinian territories. Spearheaded by Yossi Dagan, head of a regional council representing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the initiative aims to influence US policy in favor of extending Israeli control over the area.
Dagan has framed the ethnic cleansing campaign as one of “historic justice,” seeking to persuade US leaders, including President Donald Trump, to support the annexation of what he described as “the land of the bible.” According to Dagan, using the term “Judea and Samaria” in official US documents is part of reinforcing that narrative.
The decision by Republican states to consider adopting the terminology followed meetings with Dagan during the annual conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). After Dagan’s address, ALEC unanimously endorsed the initiative, giving the proposal broader momentum across GOP-controlled legislatures.
Federal-level support grows
In addition to state-level initiatives, a similar move is underway at the federal level. Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced that the committee intends to adopt the historical terms promoted by Dagan. Mast’s support signals growing alignment between certain US political circles and Israeli settlement interests.
States reportedly considering the bill include Utah, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Idaho, Iowa, and Oklahoma. These bills also include language declaring the West Bank as the biblical cradle of the Jewish people, arguing it should not be considered occupied territory.
The adoption of such terminology by US lawmakers carries significant political implications. By aligning with Israeli settlement narratives and rejecting the international consensus that views the West Bank as occupied territory, this legislation risks legitimizing ongoing ethnic cleansing and violations of international law.
This comes as settler attacks escalate across the occupied West Bank as part of the Israeli occupation’s ongoing efforts to annex Palestinian territory. These incursions are taking place under direct military protection and with full political backing from the Israeli government, according to rights groups and local sources.
West Bank: Army Abducts Many Palestinians, Shoots Child, Young Man
Mosab Shawer – ActiveStills
IMEMC | July 23, 2025
On Tuesday afternoon and evening, Israeli forces abducted several Palestinians and shot both a child and a young man during military invasions across multiple areas of the occupied West Bank.
One Palestinian youth was violently assaulted and detained at the Hizma military roadblock, northeast of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank.
According to eyewitnesses, soldiers stopped the vehicle he was traveling in, forced him out, and beat him with batons and fists, leaving him with multiple injuries.
He was then restrained and transported to an unknown location in a military vehicle. The roadblock was temporarily closed, and civilians were prevented from passing or documenting the incident.
Israeli forces routinely escalate restrictive and punitive measures at military roadblocks surrounding Jerusalem, including field abductions and physical assault, as part of what observers describe as a systematic policy aimed at obstructing Palestinian movement and instilling fear.
In a separate incident, three Palestinians, former political prisoners from Nablus, were detained at a temporary roadblock near the Qaber Hilwa bridge, east of Bethlehem.
The detainees were identified as Emad Abdul-Halim Abu Mosallam, Ala’ Mohammad Jom’a, and Samer Nidal Issa.
They were taken to the Ush Ghorab military base east of Beit Sahour, interrogated, and later released. Their vehicle remains confiscated. Hours earlier, Israeli forces at the same site reportedly abducted another unidentified youth.
In the towns of Beit Fajjar and Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, forces sealed off main streets and concentrated their invasions in central areas.
Israeli troops also surrounded Rafidia Hospital and the Arab Specialized Hospital in Nablus, in the northern West Bank, targeting the vicinity of emergency departments and firing concussion grenades.
The soldiers parked their military vehicles in front of the gates of the Emergency Department, blocking patients from entering.
The soldiers also stopped Palestinians’ ambulances heading to the two hospitals and searched them, in addition to surrounding a residential building.
In Jenin, in the northern West Bank, a youth identified as Mohammed Jihad Zaid was abducted from his home in Nazlet Zaid village.
Soldiers also invaded the residence of Saleh Zaid, seizing gold jewelry estimated at 29,000 shekels and an additional 1,500 shekels in cash.
In Qabatia, in northern West Bank, the soldiers shot a 15-year-old child in the chest [killing him] and a young man in the leg during a military invasion involving multiple military vehicles.
Both were transported to hospital for treatment. The shootings occurred after soldiers closed intersections, ransacked homes, and clashed with protesting residents.
The military offensive across the Jenin governorate have intensified since the launch of an Israeli offensive targeting Jenin city and its refugee camp on January 21.
These invasions are marked by mass abductions, violent home searches, and widespread infrastructural damage.
In addition, Israeli forces raided Al-Am’ari refugee camp in Al-Bireh, in the central West Bank, particularly the Sateh Marhaba neighborhood, where they fired tear gas canisters at residential homes, causing several cases of suffocation.
Earlier Tuesday, the army abducted many Palestinians across the West Bank, especially in Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, in addition to Ramallah.
Since the beginning of this year, Israel has killed 181 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank; 63 in Jenin, 32 in Nablus, 27 in Tubas, 17 in Tulkarem, 12 in Hebron, 11 in Ramallah, 6 in Bethlehem, 4 in Qalqilia, 5 in Jerusalem, 3 in Salfit and 1 in Jericho.
Israel has now killed 1,016 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023; 270 were killed in Jenin, 124 in Nablus, 94 in Tubas, 213 in Tulkarem, 89 in Hebron, 70 in Ramallah, 27 in Bethlehem, 37 in Qalqilia, 23 in Jerusalem, 32 in Jerusalem suburbs, 7 in Salfit and 13 in Jericho and Northern Plains.
Stolen sheep and their owners detained in Khirbet Hammamat Al-Maleh
International Solidarity Movement | July 17, 2025
Amid the brutal massacre carried out by settler gangs—under the protection and support of the occupation army in the Hammamat Al-Maleh area of the northern Jordan Valley—the crime did not stop at slaughtering the sheep and terrorizing families. It directly targeted two citizens: Suleiman Salem and Salem Salman from the Al-Najada Bedouin community.
The sheep found slaughtered—dozens in number—were their private property, executed in cold blood, some shot and others stabbed with knives, in a scene that goes beyond the limits of savagery. After committing this crime, the occupation did not stop at complicity; it arrested the two shepherds, Suleiman and Salem, throwing them into detention, leaving their families to face helplessness, fear, and deprivation. International activists were also prevented from reaching Suleiman and Salem’s home.
The two men had tried to defend their livelihood and land against the arrogance of power, but the outcome was the slaughter of their flock and the arrest of the shepherds. They were not even allowed to document what had happened and were taken to an unknown location, while their families were left without protection or provider.
This crime represents another face of the slow ethnic cleansing practiced by the occupation authorities in the Jordan Valley against farmers, shepherds, and peasants, aiming to empty the land of its people and prepare it for annexation and settlement.
The heartbreaking scene of slaughtered sheep in the mountains—piled on top of each other, blood washing the stones of the earth—is not just a violation but a scream in the face of a silent world, and a badge of shame on the forehead of everyone who sees and remains silent.
This is not just a massacre of sheep… It is a massacre of life, a massacre of dignity, a massacre of existence.
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The Kevin Barrett-Noam Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective
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