Israeli forces restrict access to scene of Turkish-American activist’s killing
Press TV – September 13, 2024
The Israeli regime’s forces have restricted access to the murder scene of a Turkish-American activist, who was killed by the Israeli military last week while protesting the regime’s illegal settlement construction activities.
Reporting on Friday, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency said the forces had placed military checkpoints at intersections in the town of Beita, south of the city of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Mahmoud Barham, head of the Beita Municipal Council, said the troops would prevent Palestinians from crossing the intersections to reach Mount Sabih, where the atrocity had taken place.
The activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was killed last Friday while protesting alongside locals in Beita against the settlement of Evyatar.
An autopsy report confirmed that the 26-year-old had been killed by an Israeli sniper’s bullet to the head, Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlas said on Saturday.
The Israeli military has alleged that Aysenur was killed during an effort by the forces to quell a “riot.”
Available footage of the protest as well as numerous witness accounts, however, contradict the claim.
The United Nations has called for an investigation of the crime.
“I can tell you that we would want to see a full investigation of the circumstances and that people should be held accountable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference following the activist’s death.
According to Wafa, Aysenur is one of 17 people who have been killed since the Evyatar settlement’s emergence in 2021.
Walaa Tanja ordered to 6 more months of arbitrary imprisonment without charge or trial
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | September 11, 2024
Walaa Khaled Tanja grew up in Balata refugee camp (Nablus), in a family with a strong history of resistance for Palestinian liberation. At the age of 15, she received her mother, Latifa Abu Dara, on Al-Quds Street near the Huwarra checkpoint, when she was released as part of the Wafaa Al-Ahrar prisoner exchange in 2011.
Her mother was later martyred due to cancer and her brother has also been repeatedly pursued, imprisoned and wounded by occupation soldiers.
Walaa was arrested on August 20th 2022, with Tahrir Abu Sariya and Maryam Arafat, and accused of attempting to carry out an armed operation in retaliation for the murder of Ibrahim Al Nabulsi. The occupation claimed that they opened fire on soldiers at the “Kedumim” illegal colonial settlement near the occupied Palestinian cities of Nablus and Qalqilya.
Walaa was released on November 24th 2023, as part of the first batch of the Al-Aqsa Flood prisoner exchange deal, in which 13 Israeli women and children were exchanged for 39 Palestinian women and children who were held hostage by the occupation.
This interrupted Walaa’s original 7-year sentence and she was welcomed home by her family. However, due to the heavy repression by the occupation, no big celebration was possible.
After her release, Walaa expressed her feelings about her liberation thanks to the Resistance in Gaza.
On March 12th 2024, while she was arriving to Tulkarem from Nablus together with her 16-year-old cousin, occupation special forces attacked the car with their guns pointed at them, and seized Walaa once again. She was taken to a military camp, then to Hasharon crossing and then to Damon prison.
Her abduction clearly broke the prisoner exchange agreement, which has now been done several times by the occupation.
Walaa was ordered to six months in “administrative detention” — arbitrary imprisonment without charge or trial, indefinitely renewable. On 11 September 2024, her detention was extended for another six months. We urge immediate liberation for Walaa Khaled Tanja, together with the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Follow the Dismantle Damon campaign for more updates on Palestinian women prisoners.
Buffer zones, new Israeli means of seizing control of West Bank
By Fayha’ Shalash | Al Mayadeen | September 10, 2024
In mid-August, Alaa Srouji was surprised when the Israeli army handed him a notice to remove his greenhouses near Tulkarm.
The official reason was that he did not have a permit for them, but when the other farmers in the area received similar notices at the same time, concerns were raised. Many now suspect that “Israel” may be planning to establish a buffer zone in the Shweika Plain area.
Israeli media reported that settlers have been calling for the establishment of buffer zones, under the pretext of preventing armed infiltration of Israeli-occupied territory, similar to what happened on October 7.
However, Palestinian human rights and research centers have confirmed that these allegations cover dangerous goals: seizing additional Palestinian land to further settlement expansion.
Will be demolished at any moment
Srouji is a member of the Sun Roots Agricultural Cooperative Society, which plays a major role in helping farmers in Tulkarm in the face of Israeli policies.
But these efforts became subject to restrictions after the Israeli army handed them notices to demolish two greenhouses in the Shweika Plain under the pretext that they were not licensed.
“Although the greenhouses have been there for 14 years and provide livelihoods for many farmers and locals, Israel now intends to remove them,” he told Al Mayadeen English.
At the same time, six other farmers were told to disassemble their greenhouses or refrain from accessing their cultivated lands in the same area, all under the same pretext.
The association submitted an objection but didn’t receive any response. With the deadline for objections passing in early September, the greenhouses now face the imminent threat of demolition at any moment.
“When we submitted the objection, we learned that the reason for the notice was the proximity of the facilities to the Beit Hefer settlement, even though it is about 400 meters away,” he added.
Forbidden lands
The establishment of buffer zones in the West Bank is divided into two parts: one separates the Palestinians from the apartheid wall that “Israel” erected in 2002, encircling the Palestinian lands, while the other surrounds the settlements scattered throughout the West Bank.
Last November, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich emphasized “the necessity of establishing buffer zones around West Bank settlements to protect them from any attack,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
In February, the Israeli army issued a decision to seize 18 dunams of land from the village of Deir Dibwan, east of Ramallah, citing “urgent military purposes” as the justification.
However, the villagers soon discovered that the decision was actually aimed at establishing a buffer zone around the Mitzpe Dani settlement, which was built on their lands.
The mayor of Deir Dibwan, Imad Musbih, told Al Mayadeen English that the seizure of these lands expresses the actual implementation of the buffer zone concept proposed by Smotrich last year.
The landowners were taken aback by this decision and tried to file objections, but to no avail, according to him. The Israeli goal, he said, is clear and resolute, and Palestinians are not allowed to stand against it.
“No one has been able to access the seized lands. They cannot cultivate them, nor graze livestock on them, nor even approach them under any circumstances”, he added.
In conjunction with the decision, the intensity of attacks by settlers coming from this settlement increased. They began to cross the seized lands and reach the village where they burned Palestinians’ vehicles, slaughtered their livestock, or destroyed their property.
All of this was done in front of the Israeli army and without any intervention to stop them. Rather, the soldiers attacked the Palestinians with gas and sound bombs and arrested them in case they tried to repel settler attacks.
New old policy
The sequence of events in the West Bank indicates that this policy is not new, but rather dates back to around three years, coinciding with the arrival of the current extremist Israeli government.
Raed Mukadi, a researcher at the Land Research Center, told Al Mayadeen English that about a year ago, an Israeli military decision was issued before the start of the olive harvest season, declaring certain areas off-limits to Palestinians. These restricted areas are concentrated south of Nablus, near Salfit, and parts of Tulkarm.
At the same time, there was another military decision in the al-Jalama area, north of Jenin, to stop building and removing facilities around the apartheid wall under the pretext of security reasons.
“It is an Israeli plan aiming to evacuate Palestinian lands close to the apartheid wall and settlements,” he explained.
According to him, the most dangerous thing is that preventing access to these lands might be a prelude to expanding settlements, constructing roads, or establishing military camps and army headquarters under security pretexts. This would effectively block their agricultural use or construction, leading to significant losses for the Palestinians.
“After the aggression on Gaza, many areas were closed off, including large tracts of land in the West Bank. For instance, access was blocked to 18,000 dunams in the Ya’bad Plain south of Jenin, with these areas being completely shut off. It remains unclear whether this closure is temporary or permanent, which complicates the ability to determine the total area of land that has been converted into buffer zones,” he said.
Coinciding with the aggression against Gaza, the Israeli government announced a state of emergency, which means giving full authority to the Israeli army to act and make unfair military decisions, according to the prevailing conditions.
The IOF actually began to seize vast areas near the settlements, settlement streets, military towers, and the apartheid wall, all of which were issued by senior Israeli authorities under the pretext of preventing Palestinian attacks, as he said.
Can Israel survive its new war in the West Bank?
By Eva Bartlett | RT | September 8, 2024
Having failed to eradicate Hamas in Gaza, Israel on August 28 began a war on the West Bank, dubbed ‘Operation Summer Camps’.
This Israeli assault on West Bank areas is the largest since 2002, with thousands of Israeli soldiers, supported by helicopters and drones, invading northern West Bank cities, particularly targeting the refugee camps of Jenin, Tubas, and Tulkarem.
The same day, the non-profit Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported: “Immediately after entering the West Bank, the Israeli army began besieging hospitals, ambulances, and emergency centres, replicating its horrifying and systematic policy of breaching and taking control of health institutions that it has employed in the Gaza Strip.
Simultaneously with the storming of these areas, raid and arrest campaigns were carried out in most cities in the West Bank amid gunfire that injured many Palestinians. Since last October, 660 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed as a result of the Israeli military’s systematic, large-scale attacks.
Journalist Mariam Barghouti on August 31 wrote, “I was in Jenin and I cannot explain how ruthless the Israeli military is being. The city is like a ghost town and the refugee camp is a collective torture chamber. Israeli practices in Jenin include: mass arrests including minors, blowing up homes of civilians, denying entry of food, water, medics. The children that managed to escape are traumatized, they’re nothing but tears and shock. Everyone is unable to fully recognize this unprecedented violence and at such an intensity. Jenin is another Gaza in terms of violence being inflicted.”
According to the UN’s OCHA, between 27 August and 2 September, Israeli forces killed 30 Palestinians in the West Bank, including seven children, the highest weekly death toll since November 2023 (by September 6, the number had increased to 39 Palestinians killed, including eight children, and approximately 145 injured).
Those murdered, OCHA notes, include an 82-year-old Palestinian man, shot and killed while attempting to buy bread. Israeli forces also reportedly shot and killed two Palestinian boys, aged 13 and 16, “being chased by Israeli forces while attempting to distribute bread to besieged families near the eastern neighbourhood of Jenin city.” Israeli soldiers also abducted and tortured to death a 50-year-old civilian.
Further, OCHA reports that between October 7, 2023 and September 2 this year, “652 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
The brutality is not only from the Israeli military but also the illegal Jewish colonists who are given carte blanche to attack and kill, Palestinians, as they’ve done for decades, and as I’ve written about before.
According to OCHA, in the same timeframe there were “about 1,300 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, of which over 120 led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries.”
On top of all of this Israeli destruction and carnage are the continued abductions of Palestinian civilians (young and elderly). It has been widely reported from inside Israel, through leaked footage and in countless testimonies from Palestinian hostages, that Israel routinely tortures Palestinians via beatings, electric shocks to genitals, stress positions, psychological torture, near starvation, and also rape to the point of causing serious internal damage.
Palestine Chronicle reported on September 3, citing the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), that “at least 53 Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli custody” between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024.
The article refers to a letter this June from Ronen Bar, head of the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet, to Benjamin Netanyahu this June, putting the number of detainees at 21,000. This is a shocking 11,000 higher than was known in April when I last wrote about the nearly 10,000 Palestinian hostages in Israeli prisons.
Israel wants West Bank wiped off the map
On the morning Israel started its current mini-Gaza bombardment and displacement campaign, Foreign Minister Israel Katz boasted of the destruction and killing to come, saying, “We must deal with the threat just as we deal with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required. This is a war for everything and we must win it.”
Then, there was Prime Minister Netanyahu during a press conference pointing to his map with the West Bank erased.
In its report, the human rights organization Euromed cites Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth writing that, “an organised evacuation of the Palestinian civilian population will be carried out according to the… combat centres.”
The group notes, “This is a clear indication of Israel’s intention to commit genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank, just as it has done against those in the Gaza Strip.”
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese on September 2 stated, “There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control… The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.”
However, Palestinian resistance groups are putting up a fight. On X, accounts closely following events claim as of September 1, the Jenin Brigade, “Conducted over 15 IED operations, killing & wounding IOF [Israeli occupation forces], significantly damaging their vehicles,“ while the Tulkam Brigade “Conducted 6 IED operations, killing & wounding IOF.”
Al Mayadeen some days later reported similar events, noting, “Palestinian Resistance confronts IOF in Jenin, Tulkarm for 8th day The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Jenin confirmed that its resistance fighters engaged in confrontations with Israeli forces in the al-Hadaf neighborhood using machine guns and IEDs.”
It’s worth remembering the words of Retired Israeli General Yitzhak Brick just a couple of weeks ago, when he stated, ”Israel is sinking deeper into the Gazan mud, losing more and more soldiers as they get killed or wounded, without any chance of achieving the war’s main goal: bringing down Hamas. The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss. If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.”
After over ten months of Israel killing and starving the Palestinians of Gaza, it’s safe to say that if the general’s prediction comes true, that would be some slight justice for the Palestinian suffering both since October 7 and before.
EuroMed, in its above-mentioned report, calls on all nations to, “impose strong sanctions on Israel and halt all forms of military, political, and financial assistance. This includes immediately cutting off all arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid; otherwise, these nations will be complicit in and partners in the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, including the crime of genocide.”
Given that the so-called international community has colossally failed Palestinians in allowing Israel to slaughter, starve and torture them, halting arms supplies to Israel and imposing sanctions is the least countries could do.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
What is Happening in the Northern West Bank?
By Diana Khwaelid | International Solidarity Movement | September 4, 2024
Northern West Bank – The radical Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has renewed his incitement to impose collective punishment on citizens in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of detainees in occupation prisons.
In the early hours of August 28, 2024, Israel announced the start of a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, specifically targeting three cities and their refugee camps: Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas. Israel has named this operation “The Summer Camps,” while the resistance factions in the West Bank, particularly the Jerusalem Brigades, have called it “The Terror of the Camps”. This Israeli operation is the largest since the “Protective Fence” operation in 2002. According to the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper, a full military squad was mobilized after several weeks of preparation. Hebrew Channel 14 confirmed that the army had deployed thousands of soldiers from various special units, including the use of military helicopters and heavy weapons.
The operation began with a simultaneous Israeli incursion into the three cities, using huge bulldozers and air cover. The Israeli occupation forces closed all roads leading to the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, but encountered armed resistance from fighters who attempted to prevent further advancement. In response to the armed clashes on the ground, Israel resorted to airstrikes, bombing three different locations: the Far’a refugee camp (Tubas), the Nour Shams refugee camp (Tulkarm), and a site near the Jenin refugee camp. These bombings killed several resistance fighters and wounded others. The first day ended with the assassination of nine resistance fighters, most of them from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades, and the wounding of an Israeli soldier amid massive destruction to the infrastructure of several targeted cities.
A week ago, the occupation forces began a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank under the pretext of dismantling resistance cells. Since then, resistance fighters have been confronting them with explosive devices and gunfire, resulting in the deaths and injuries of several Israeli soldiers.
The operation has so far resulted in the martyrdom of 33 Palestinians and the injury of 130 others, causing significant destruction to the infrastructure in the cities and camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Tubas. The Israeli occupation forces have not only liquidated several resisters in the Nur Shams refugee camp, northeast of Tulkarm, Jenin Camp, Tubas, and Nablus but also renewed their incursion into the city of Tulkarm on the evening of Monday, September 2. This time, they stationed themselves in the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the military operation is still ongoing.
The residents of the camps in the northern West Bank, particularly in the Tulkarm and Jenin camps, are experiencing a state of fear and terror. On Monday evening, Israeli occupation snipers targeted a civilian and his 15-year-old son. The father was transferred to the hospital, but the child died while attempting to leave the camp.
Israeli special forces also surrounded a Palestinian house in the village of Dhnaba, east of Tulkarm, and demanded the surrender of two Palestinian youths. According to eyewitnesses, they used a Palestinian child, no older than 16, as a human shield. The forces subsequently killed the two Palestinians, seized their bodies, and confiscated their private vehicle.
The Israeli occupation forces are also obstructing the movement of medical crews in the northern West Bank cities, particularly Tulkarm and Jenin, preventing them from entering the camps, transporting the injured, and assisting Palestinian patients in humanitarian cases.
The house that was surrounded and two Palestinians were executed in the village of Dhnabu
4 journalists injured by Israel army fire in West Bank
MEMO | September 3, 2024
Four Palestinian journalists were injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank town of Kafr Dan, the Red Crescent Society said today.
The society said two journalists were treated on the spot by its medics while two others were transferred to hospital.
Jaraah Khalaf, one of the injured journalists, said he and other reporters were covering an Israeli siege on a house in Kafr Dan, in the Jenin Governorate, when they came under direct Israeli fire.
“We were all wearing vests that clearly had press identification labels in English (PRESS), and our vehicles carried the same insignia,” he said.
Israeli occupation forces raided the town early today and besieged a house, calling on its occupants to surrender via loudspeakers, according to witnesses.
The house was later demolished by Israeli military bulldozers, while a child and another Palestinian were injured during the raid, according to the Ministry of Health.
Israeli Forces Kill Three Palestinians in Tulkarem Camp
IMEMC | August 22, 2024
Israeli forces killed three Palestinian citizens, before dawn on Thursday, after soldiers bombed a home in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the northwestern part of the West Bank.
Media sources identified the three slain young men as Muawiyah Khaled Hajj Ahmad, 19, Wassim Saber Sobhi Anbar, 20, and Emad Taiser Yousef Shreim, 38.
Sources added that the army invaded the city of Tulkarem and besieged the Tulkarem refugee camp, before dawn on Thursday, accompanied by military bulldozers, sparking protests.
The army positioned sharpshooters on rooftops of citizen’s homes, while armed resistance fighters exchanged fire with the attacking army, before reinforcements arrived.
Soldiers fired light bombs into the sky, while reconnaissance drones circled the sky above and the sound of explosions were heard.
Military bulldozers caused destruction to streets, infrastructure and private property in the camp.
Later media sources said that occupation forces stormed the Iktaba suburb, east of the city, besieged a home, and fired an “Energa” anti-tank grenade at the home, causing severe destruction to the home and a vehicle; no injuries were reported.
Israeli forces have now killed 640 Palestinians, including 147 children, and injured 5,400 in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the military onslaught against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has killed 40,223 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, and injured 92,981 since the beginning of its military onslaught on October 7, 2023, while thousands remain under the rubble.
A strategic shift: Will Palestinian groups return to ‘martyrdom attacks’ inside Israel?
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 20, 2024
Yesterday, the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned Israel that they plan to return to ‘martyrdom attacks’ inside Israel.
“The Brigades affirm that martyrdom operations within the occupied territories will return to the forefront as long as the massacres by the occupation, the displacement of civilians and the assassination policy continue,” a joint statement by Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades said.
Palestinian groups have refrained from using martyrdom attacks, or suicide bombings, as it is often called by mainstream media, as a central piece of their ongoing resistance against Israel.
The warning followed an explosion that rocked Tel Aviv on the evening of Sunday.
Initially, Israeli media conveyed a degree of confusion regarding what had transpired in the Israeli capital, before an Israeli police commander announced that there was a 99 per cent chance that the operation was “an attempted terror attack”.
Later, Israel said that the attacker may have originated from the Nablus area of the southern West Bank.
The attack and the announcement of responsibility by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad the following day are significant and could become the beginning of a strategic shift by Palestinians in their ongoing war against the Israeli occupation.
But why would Palestinians return to such operations?
Since 7 October, the Israeli war on Gaza has expanded to reach other domains, thus complicating the mission of the Israeli army, which has been overstretched to fight on several fronts.
While the war in Gaza itself remains the main battlefield, other war fronts began escalating with time, mainly the border war between the Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, and the Israeli occupation army.
To prevent the West Bank from turning into a major front for the resistance, the Israeli army began carrying out bloody, but focused, attacks on Palestinian resistance brigades, which operate mostly in the northern West Bank.
Geographically isolated and operating mostly in small groups, Palestinian fighters underwent a bloody, disproportionate war against the Israeli army.
The Israeli occupation army’s confidence was buoyed by the fact that security forces and intelligence belonging to the Palestinian Authority openly cooperated with the Israeli military in their attempt to crush the resistance.
The degree of cooperation reached its zenith on 26 July, when PA security forces besieged the 26-year-old leader of the Tulkarm Brigades, and other fighters, in the Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarm.
If it were not for hundreds of ordinary Palestinians who rushed to the hospital to rescue their youth, the fighters would have been apprehended, if not even worse.
But Israel’s military campaign to crush the resistance in the West Bank was hardly a success. According to Al Jazeera, 100 Palestinian operations were carried out in the last month alone.
Meanwhile, the resistance in Gaza has proved its durability, moving from the stage of defence to that of counter-attacks on more than one occasion. The operation by Hamas’s Al-Qassam fighters targeting Israeli forces inside the fortified Netzarim area in central Gaza, on Sunday, was a case in point.
These developments have been taking place in the larger context of the widening confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, with the former extending its pinpointed operations to reach Nahariya, among other areas, in northern Israel.
Despite all the setbacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to reverse his dwindling numbers among potential voters. According to a poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv on 9 August, the Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, would be the largest party in the Knesset if elections were held today. This is the first time such results have been seen since 7 October.
A combination of factors led to the resurgence of Netanyahu in opinion polls.
First, the Israeli leader’s main rival, Benny Gantz has failed to galvanize on the anti-Netanyahu and anti-government popular sentiments starting on 7 October.
Second, Netanyahu’s ability to guarantee US support for his aggressive regional policies helped reassure the Israeli public.
Third, the direct involvement of the US-British and other western navies in confronting Yemen’s Ansarallah – Houthis – in the Red Sea has partly downgraded the geopolitical threat of the Yemeni solidarity with the Palestinians.
Fourth, the daring assassination of top Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July, and the assassination of leading Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr the day before, allowed Netanyahu to sell the idea, however temporary, that Israel has regained its so-called ‘deterrence’.
And, finally, despite the interception of occasional missiles beyond the Gaza Envelope or Israel’s northmost regions, Israeli society in the central areas of the country has learned to adapt to the new reality of the war.
While the Israeli army is losing an unprecedented number of soldiers and equipment on multiple fronts, not all Israelis are experiencing that loss in their everyday lives.
The opposite is true for Palestinians and Lebanese.
For the former, the genocide in Gaza has turned into a daily reality, and the Israeli occupation forces’s war on the West Bank has proved to be the most violent since the Second Intifada or Uprising of 2002.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Israel continues to target civilian areas as a matter of course, thus constantly challenging the rules of engagement that have governed the relationship between the Israeli army and the Lebanese resistance for years.
The new status quo may have assured Netanyahu that he might be able to carry on with his war in Gaza, reject any reasonable ceasefire proposal and maintain low-intensity warfare with Lebanon.
Netanyahu would also like to see the US-British war on Yemen escalate into an all-out war against Iran.
The Palestinian warning of their intention to return to striking deep inside Israel is meant to disturb Netanyahu’s calculations.
By denying Israelis any sense of security in major cities inside Israel, the Israeli public could, once more, turn against Netanyahu for failing to deliver on any of his lofty promises.
It remains unclear whether Sunday’s truck bombing was the exception or the start of a new norm. Either way, Netanyahu and his security apparatus must be aware of how such a move could prove equally costly to all of Israel’s losing wars, on all fronts.
Israeli forces run over, kill 15-year-old Palestinian boy injured in drone strike
Israeli forces killed 15-year-old Khatab Majdi Asad Abu Badawiya in Jenin on August 6, 2024. (Photo: Courtesy of the Abu Badawiya family)
Defense for Children International – Palestine | August 8, 2024
Ramallah, August 8, 2024—Israeli forces killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Jenin during a military incursion on Tuesday morning.
Khatab Majdi Asad Abu Badawiya, 15, was struck by shrapnel from an Israeli drone-fired missile around 9:40 a.m. on August 6 during an Israeli military incursion into the eastern neighborhood of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Khatab allegedly threw a homemade explosive device toward a heavily armored Israeli military vehicle prior to the drone strike. The strike, which injured Khatab, killed three armed Palestinian men. After Khatab was injured in the strike, an ambulance attempted to reach him but Israeli soldiers in the military vehicle fired live ammunition toward the paramedics. The military vehicle then dragged a civilian vehicle parked nearby and attempted to push it onto the child lying on the ground. After failing to do so, the military vehicle advanced towards Khatab, who was still alive, and drove one of its wheels onto his abdomen. The military vehicle stayed near the bodies of the child and the other young men for about 40 minutes before withdrawing.
“Israeli forces continue showing contempt for Palestinian children’s lives as they carry out aerial attacks in densely populated civilian areas like Jenin,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Israeli forces not only injured Khatab in a drone strike, but they shot at paramedics trying to provide aid, then parked their military vehicle on top of his torso while he bled out in a shocking act of cruelty. Countries need to enact an immediate arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to force accountability for Israeli forces who have been allowed to brutally kill Palestinian children with impunity for decades.”
Palestinian residents demolished a wall so paramedics could walk to the scene, since Israeli forces targeted the ambulance with live ammunition. Paramedics transported Khatab and the three Palestinian men to the ambulance, which was parked about 200 meters (656 feet) away. Doctors pronounced all four of them dead on arrival at Jenin Governmental Hospital.
Israeli forces stormed the center of Jenin on August 5 around 3:30 p.m. Soldiers raided the Gulf Exchange Company on Abu Bakr Street. During the incursion into the city center, Israeli military vehicles deliberately smashed many vehicles by crashing into them. The soldiers also fired heavily and indiscriminately while the area was crowded with vendors and shoppers.
Palestinian gunmen confronted the Israeli soldiers. During these confrontations, Israeli military reinforcements, accompanied by large military bulldozers, arrived in Jenin city and refugee camp. The bulldozers began destroying infrastructure, demolishing walls of several homes, and smashing and burning vendor stalls in the Jenin market.
After Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin, they entered the Palestinian village of Kafr Qud to the west and besieged a house, killing two young men and confiscating their bodies. Three others were injured in the besiegement and were subsequently arrested.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 62 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
143 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to documentation collected by DCIP, when the Israeli military began a full-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip.
In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 121 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces and settlers shot and killed 103 Palestinian children with live ammunition, 13 Palestinian children were killed in drone strikes, four Palestinian children were killed by missiles fired from a U.S.-sourced Apache attack helicopter, and one child was killed in an Israeli warplane airstrike.
Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.
How western Big Tech giants enable Israel’s occupation
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | July 20, 2024
On 10 July, Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported that 46,000 Israeli businesses have been forced to shut down due to the ongoing Gaza war and its devastating effect on the economy. The outlet referred to Israel as a “country in collapse.”
Regular readers of The Cradle will be well aware of the scale of the occupation state’s economic collapse since the Gaza genocide began. Yet, its effect on the precipitous decline of Tel Aviv’s once-thriving tech sector remains underexplored.
Complicity in occupation infrastructure
In mid-June, mainstream news outlets reported that chip giant Intel was halting expansion of a major factory project in Israel, which was slated to pump an extra $15 billion into the occupation entity’s economy.
Intel is just one tech giant whose fortunes have soured since Palestinian freedom fighters breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls on 7 October 2023.
The same fate has been suffered by many tech companies profiteering from illegal Zionist settlement expansion, which also provide infrastructure and resources used to oppress Palestinians and enforce Tel Aviv’s apartheid.
Multiple consumer-facing western companies that not only profit from illegal Jewish settlement expansion but actively provide core infrastructure and resources used to oppress Palestinians and enforce Tel Aviv’s apartheid could now be subject to lawsuits.
This week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.” Notably, the court opened the door to “reparations” for any illegal actions carried out by Israel and other entities since 1967.
The ICJ’s landmark judgment means the long-term viability of these tech firms’ operations in the occupied territories is moribund – for fear of legal repercussions, if nothing else.
Fittingly, given Germany is currently in the dock at the ICJ for its support and facilitation of the genocide in Gaza, Munich-headquartered tech conglomerate Siemens is among the culprits.
The firm is “focused on automation and digitalization in the manufacturing industries, intelligent infrastructure for buildings and distributed energy systems, smart mobility solutions for rail transport, and medical technology and digital healthcare services.” Its products are profuse throughout the occupation state and its illegal settlements.
Traffic control systems and traffic lights produced by Siemens can be found in areas of the West Bank where Palestinian residents are forbidden from traveling. In 2014, the company’s Israeli subdivision RS Industries won a tender to provide traffic control systems across the Jerusalem Municipality too – East Jerusalem, designated as the capital of the Palestinian state, was occupied in 1967, and falls within the ICJ’s mandate.
Elsewhere, Siemens provides its DDEMU model cars for the Tel Aviv Jerusalem Fast Train and, in 2018, was awarded a $1 billion contract by the entity-owned Israel Railways to supply 330 electric cars as part of Israel’s electrification project, which includes the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem Fast Train (A1).
A highly controversial project that passes through two areas of the West Bank, including privately owned, occupied Palestinian land, it is intended for exclusive use by Israeli Jews.
Don’t Buy Into Occupation (DBIO) states: “Siemens’ activities are of concern, as they are linked to the provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements.”
However, the company’s activities extend far further. Through its Israeli representative, Orad Group, the company provides equipment and technology to the notorious Israel Prison Service (IPS).
In 2004, the Orad Group provided a Siemens technology-based perimeter security system to Gilboa prison — a detention center specifically designated for Palestinian political prisoners. Siemens also supplies the IPS with a sophisticated fire detection and extinguishing system.
Connecting settlements
US brand Motorola is widely recognized for its innovative smartphone devices. However, DBIO has meticulously documented the involvement of Motorola’s Tel Aviv division in settlement expansion over the past decade.
The tech giant has collaborated closely with Israeli occupation forces, the Ministry of Defense, and Zionist settlement councils across the illegally occupied territories. A prime example of this collaboration is the surveillance system “MotoEagle,” designed to monitor settlers on appropriated land, operate within occupation military bases, and oversee the Gaza concentration camp’s separation wall.
Notably, Motorola-produced radar stations have been installed on illegally appropriated private Palestinian land, restricting Palestinian movement in these areas. Furthermore, Motorola supplies the Ministry of Defense’s Zramim System, a smart card operation utilized at Israeli checkpoints to monitor goods transportation.
Palestinian drivers, merchants, and transport companies are compelled to register their personal information in this system, enabling Tel Aviv to monitor all entry and exit points meticulously.
The company is also a preferred contractor for internal security systems in numerous occupation settlements. The Jordan Valley regional council, encompassing more than 20 settlements in the occupied West Bank, employs multiple Motorola products, including command and control systems and surveillance cameras. Additionally, the Population and Immigration Authority in the settlement of Beitar Illit uses Motorola for its security needs.
In 2022, Motorola Solutions secured a contract to provide security cameras and entrance control resources for the Jerusalem Light Rail’s (JLR) entire Green Line. This route links the Gilo settlement in occupied East Jerusalem with the city center and the Ramat Eshkol, Ma’alot Dafna, and French Hill settlements, facilitating connectivity between settler enclaves and supporting settler movement. Consequently, Motorola has been listed in the UN’s database of firms profiting from illegal settlement expansion.
Powering apartheid
Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE), which split from personal computer and printer provider Hewlett Packard in 2015, is one of the most profitable US corporations. However, it is less well-known that HPE supplies and manages much of the technological infrastructure underpinning the occupation state’s apartheid and settler colonialism.
For example, HPE provides “Itanium” servers and maintenance services to Tel Aviv’s Population and Immigration Authority. This computerized Israel’s checkpoint system while storing vast amounts of information on all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and non-citizen Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.
HPE directly contracts with the illegal settler municipalities of Modi’in Ilit and Ariel, two of the largest Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, providing them with a range of services. Additionally, HPE maintains the central server system for the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), placing the company at the core of Tel Aviv’s use of mass incarceration to suppress Palestinian resistance. A 1994 Human Rights Watch report highlighted this by noting:
“The extraction of confessions under duress, and the acceptance into evidence of such confessions by the military courts, form the backbone of Israel’s military justice system.”
Moreover, HPE is the primary provider of the Basel system, an automated biometric access control system employed at Israeli checkpoints and the Gaza apartheid wall. ID cards distributed under Basel are integral to the systematic discrimination against Palestinians.
The checkpoints, by design, segregate and fragment the Occupied Palestinian Territories and its inhabitants, separating workers from their places of employment, students from their schools, and families from each other through electrified fences, watchtowers, and concrete barriers.
Electronic counter intifada
This system is part of a broader state of siege under which Palestinians have lived for decades, significantly intensified by the sealing off of Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli navy, another HPE customer, relies on the company’s IT infrastructure and support services. The siege severely restricts the movement of goods and people in and out of Palestinian territories, aiming explicitly to crush Palestinian resistance.
In 2006, Dov Weisglass, an adviser to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” It was hoped hunger pangs through limited caloric intake might encourage Palestinians to reject Hamas or at least force its fighters to temper their resistance efforts. The starvation of Palestinians has only galvanized their support for Hamas and their yearning for freedom from Israeli occupation.
The occupation state failed to crush the Palestinian resistance via Operation Swords of Iron, an effort so catastrophic that even Israeli media has branded it a “total defeat.”
Following Iran’s successful 14 April retaliatory strikes against Israel, Tel Aviv’s reign of impunity appears to be nearing its long-overdue end. It is only a matter of time before major western tech firms like HPE, which facilitated the oppression of Palestinians, will face consequences for their complicity.
This investigation is the second in a series at The Cradle that examines illegal investments by western corporations in the occupied Palestinian territories and/or that assist Israel in implementing its apartheid system. The first investigation can be found here.
‘Buying Our Own Stolen Water’ – Scorching Summer Awaits Palestinians in the West Bank
By Fayha Shalash | The Palestine Chronicle | June 26, 2024
Ramallah – Every summer, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank struggle with the lack of water as a result of official Israeli policy. This year, however, matters are expected to worsen as a result of an Israeli decision to further reduce the percentage of water available to Palestinians.
During the past few weeks, Israel decided to reduce the amount of water allocated to the cities of Hebron (Al-Khalil) and Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank, by about 35 percent, while increasing the settlers’ share of water resources.
The Israeli Mekorot water company, which controls the amount of resources that reach Palestinians in the West Bank, officially informed the Hebron municipality of the new provision.
The decision has intensified the state of anxiety among the residents of the two cities.
Summer Nightmare
For Muhammad al-Talahma, a resident of the city of Dura, south of Hebron, the summer season has been a nightmare for years, since the Israeli occupation decided to reduce water quantities.
The residents of Hebron, which is famous for its agriculture and fertile soil, are experiencing a state of continuous psychological pressure. Due to the reduction in water, many residents have been forced to reduce their crops because they cannot afford irrigation.
Al-Talahma told the Palestine Chronicle that he has become a policeman in his own home – constantly monitoring his six children’s use of water.
This, however, is not enough.
In the last weeks, the water has been cut off several times a month, making life almost impossible.
“We are reducing everything, including showering and cleaning the house. My wife is forced to use the water to wash the dishes to also clean the floor,” al-Talahma said.
“We live as if we were in the Middle Ages, in houses without water,” he added. “Every few days, we are forced to buy water for astronomical sums, if we find it at all.”
A water tank costs more than 400 shekels (108 dollars) but al-Talahma is forced to buy it regularly to meet his family’s needs.
He said this is a huge financial burden in light of the harsh economic conditions.
To make things worse, Palestinians in the Hebron area are aware that the settlements that were established on Palestinian lands can enjoy large amounts of water resources.
Moreover, the illegal Jewish settlers take control of the water springs throughout the city’s mountains, forbidding access to their Palestinian owners.
“It is painful to see that my children are thirsty, while settlers’ children are swimming and having fun in pools around the water springs that our ancestors built,” al-Talahma stressed. “Armed soldiers are deployed around them to ensure we do not approach them.”
Double Standards
Therefore, the recent announcement that water quantities for the Palestinians will be further decreased has made matters even more complicated.
The Hebron Municipality appealed to the international community to intervene to solve the water crisis, especially since the population is growing.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the population of the cities of Hebron and Bethlehem at more than 1.1 million people, noting that Palestinians depend mainly on water extracted from ground and surface sources. This amounts to 75.7 percent of the total available water.
According to the Bureau, “the Israeli occupation’s measures led to limiting the ability of Palestinians to exploit their natural resources, especially water, and forced them to compensate for the shortage by purchasing water from the Israeli water company Mekorot.”
The amount of water purchased from the Israeli company for domestic use amounted to 98.8 million cubic meters in 2022, which constitutes 22 percent of the amount of available water.
Also, according to the statistics, the average daily Palestinian consumption is 85.7 liters. In contrast, Israeli consumption is three times greater, at about 300 liters per day.
In the case of illegal settlers, numbers are even more shocking; they consume more than seven times the Palestinian per capita consumption.
Forced Displacement
Hassan Barijiyah, a Bethlehem-based expert on settlement affairs, told The Palestine Chronicle that the city is built on a pool of groundwater that would be sufficient for all its residents and even exceeds its needs.
Barijiyah believes that all of these Israeli practices – the most recent of which was the reduction of water – aim to forcibly displace the Palestinians by cutting off all means of life for them.
In parallel, there is a declared Israeli war on every Palestinian who tries to dig wells to store water under the pretext that they are not licensed.
“If the Israeli occupation did not exist, we would distribute water to all the Palestinians, but we are thirsty and we are forced to buy water from the Israelis who steal it from us,” he said.
“They always come to the Ancient Pools of Suliman, Ain al-Hiniya, and Fukin Valley, swim in them, and steal their water under the pretext that it is sacred, while we are prevented from accessing and benefiting from it,” Barijiyah said.
Fayha’ Shalash is a Ramallah-based Palestinian journalist. She graduated from Birzeit University in 2008 and she has been working as a reporter and broadcaster ever since.
More Palestinians share horror after Israeli soldiers ‘throw them on jeep bonnet’
Press TV – July 1, 2024
More Palestinians have said they were injured by Israeli soldiers then forced onto the hood of vehicles and driven at speed along village roads following a recent military operation in the occupied West Bank.
Two more men have said they were subjected to the terrifying ordeal after an Israeli raid in Jabariyat, on the outskirts of Jenin in the West Bank.
Samir Dabaya, 23, now hospitalized in Jenin, said he was shot in the back during the raid, and lay face-down and bleeding for hours before he was assessed by soldiers.
He said when the soldiers realized he was alive he was beaten with a gun and then picked up and thrown onto the bonnet of a military jeep.
“They took off my [trousers]. I wanted to hold onto the car, but [one soldier] hit my face and told me not to. Then he started driving. I was waiting for death,” Dabaya was quoted as saying by the British state-backed broadcaster BBC, which said it was shown security camera footage that appeared to confirm his account.
Another Palestinian, Hesham Isleit, said he was shot twice during the operation in Jabariyat and forced onto the same military jeep. He said during the raid he was shot in the leg as he tried to run away.
“They ordered us to stand up, and undressed us, then they asked us to get onto the front of the jeep,” Isleit said.
All this came after footage of 23-year-old Mujahid Abadi Balas clinging to the bonnet of the same jeep sparked international outrage. The shocking image raised concerns over the use of human shields, something that is repeated in several ways in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli regime forces put Palestinian civilians in front of them or otherwise put civilians in the line of fire and force them to open doors that could be booby-trapped or remove suspicious objects that might be bombs.
The Zionist forces also often employ the “neighbor procedure” in which Palestinian civilians are forced to attempt to persuade individuals to leave or surrender themselves.
The use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli regime forces in numerous cases has been well documented by multiple human rights organizations.
For decades, Palestinian children and adults alike have been used as human shields by the Israeli forces during operations.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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