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Washington Post
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Killings near a West Bank village show even Americans aren't immune
AL-MAZRA'A AL-SHARQIYA, West Bank — The killings of two young men from this village this month, including a 20-year-old American citizen, marked a notable escalation in the battle being waged by Israeli settlers for Palestinian-owned land in the rolling hills of the West Bank. Al-Mazra'a Al-Sharqiya, a picturesque village where most residents are U.S. citizens, had for years escaped the worst of the violence roiling the occupied West Bank. But its residents had watched as settlers toted M-16s and Israeli security forces transformed the neighboring hamlet into what its mayor describes as an 'open-air prison' encircled by barricades and fences.
National Post
16-07-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Adam Zivo: Little love for Iran in the West Bank
As the Iran-Israel war raged last month, I visited Bethlehem in the West Bank, on behalf of the News Forum, to better understand how Palestinians coped with the conflict, which is now in a ceasefire. There, I spoke with several locals who, despite being deeply critical of Israel, called for regional peace and harboured little love for the Iranian regime. Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people — particularly anti-Israel activists in the West — listened to these voices. Article content Article content While Bethlehem is normally only a 20-minute bus ride away from Jerusalem, Israeli security forces locked down the West Bank at the beginning of the war with Iran. Checkpoints proliferated. Gates were closed. The city's main entrance (heavy iron doors flanked by armed soldiers) was shut on the morning of my visit, as were most of the inbound roads. Yet, after several failures, my taxi eventually found an open entry. Article content Article content Article content In more peaceful times, over 2.5 million tourists would come to Bethlehem each year, primarily to see the Church of the Nativity where Jesus Christ was born. But the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas in southern Israel, followed by the wars in Gaza and against Hezbollah, decimated Israel's tourism sector, leaving the West Bank bereft of visitors. Many of the city's districts were essentially empty — only thick quiet existed amid shuttered storefronts. 'Since the war against Gaza, the situation was horrible. We are isolated,' Jack Jackaman, a Christian Palestinian who owned a small woodworking shop near the church told me. He said that Israel's stricter use of gates and checkpoints made it near-impossible for Palestinians to travel within the West Bank. These restrictions had, furthermore, precipitated a fuel crisis: lines of cars jammed the roads near gas stations, awaiting their rations. Article content Article content 'We are not secure. No income. The family completely without income. My workers — everybody is not safe. We have nothing. No secure future,' he said. Article content Article content Although Jackaman blamed Israel for the war with Iran, he also believed that the Iranian regime is irrational and that neither Tehran nor Tel Aviv should have nuclear weapons. He was afraid of Iran's missiles, because, even if they were aimed at Israeli cities, they still flew over the West Bank and could malfunction and land on Palestinian communities. Article content While Jackaman believed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a warmonger, he considered Judaism a 'normal religion' that calls for 'peace and love,' much like Christianity and Islam. 'As Christians, we have to follow the teaching of our Jesus and to pray for peace and try not to make war. The war will not achieve peace,' he said. Article content Joseph Kaleel, an elderly Christian Palestinian woodworker, felt similarly: 'We just keep praying for peace of Jerusalem. For everyone. For everybody. Doesn't matter your religion, your race, your colour, your country. We want peace.' He had once employed half a dozen labourers at his workshop, but the tourism industry's wartime collapse had forced him to lay them all off. He sold his tools just to survive. The basement that once housed them was derelict and coated in dust. Article content When the Iran war erupted, Kaleel ran to the grocery store to buy food for his children and oil for his car. He sat in front of the television for the first few days, sleeplessly watching Al Jazeera 'from the morning till the morning,' and worried about errant Iranian missiles: 'They don't have eyes. They make mistakes.' Article content While Kaleel believed that the Iranian people are peaceful, he called their regime 'very crazy' but 'very strong.' He worried that hostilities could drag on, given that the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s had lasted for eight years. Article content When I told him that some Westerners glorify Iran's Islamic Regime because they believe this furthers the Palestinian cause, he seemed irritated. 'This is wrong. Brother, this is wrong,' he replied. He believed that Iran should abandon its militancy, not seek regional hegemony, and that this would stabilize the Middle East by neutralizing Tehran's proxies in Yemen and Lebanon (the Houthis and Hezbollah). Article content Kaleel's grandson Michael, who also worked in the family business, concurred with his grandfather: 'We need peace. We don't care about Iran and what they do.' Over a cup of mint tea, he described the unemployment and destitution that had befallen Bethlehem after October 7 which worsened amid the newest war. These troubles had left some locals, particularly orphans and widows, crushed 'like the grass between two elephants fighting.' Article content He said that an Iranian missile had recently landed near his home, shaking its walls. Yet, like most Palestinians in the West Bank, he had no bomb shelter to retreat to, so all he could do was pray to God for safety. 'You can't say Palestinian and Iran are the same. We are never the same,' he firmly asserted, noting that Iran had supported the 'bad' and 'crazy' people behind October 7. Article content In Aida Refugee Camp (which consists of run down low-rise apartments, not tents), I spoke with a Muslim vendor of ice cream and juice. He had once made a good income working in Israel, like many Palestinian labourers, but now, with the wars, that was no longer possible. Article content Article content 'All we ask for is to live in peace, raise our children, and live a dignified life. People have reached the point of despair. In mosques, the number of people begging is now greater than the number of people praying,' he said. 'It's a heartbreaking situation.' He, too, feared Iran's rockets: 'They don't distinguish between civilians and soldiers. Palestinians or Israelis. In the end, everyone loses in war.' Article content Ahmed Al-Sabba, another street vendor, was similarly anxious. His children couldn't sleep out of fear of Iran's missiles, whose explosions sounded 'terrifying,' so he would stay awake with them until the morning. 'We do not support Iran, or the Iranian government, or sectarianism or wars.' Article content He said that, though Israel's restrictions had made life much harder, he nonetheless wanted coexistence: 'We see what is happening in Gaza, we don't want to see it happen in the West Bank. Wars only grow bigger and destroy relationships. Our message is simple: we want to live in peace. We don't want wars.' Article content The following week, after the Israel-Iran war abruptly ended, I visited a Palestinian peace activist in his village near Bethlehem (disclosure: I paid him to act as my guide and translator on the previous trip; his name has been withheld for his safety). Sitting in his living room, he explained that it is unproductive for Westerners to conflate Palestinian and Iranian interests, partially because each nation belongs to a different branch of Islam. Article content Iranians are predominantly Shias. Palestinians are predominantly Sunnis. Historically, there has been a great deal of violence between these two sects, so, according to the peace activist, some Palestinians fear that they could be Iran's 'next target' should it defeat and occupy Israel. Article content Nonetheless, many of his neighbours climbed onto their roofs to watch the Iranian attacks. Some were curious spectators. Others wanted to witness the destruction of Israel, despite their misgivings about Iran. And then there were the parents 'who wanted to see if any missile was heading to their home so they could just collect their kids and say their final goodbyes.' Article content
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Children suffered record levels of violence in conflict zones in 2024, UN report shows
A record number of children were subjected to acts of violence in conflict zones in 2024, with the number of incidents recorded rising by 25%, according to a UN report. The UN security council's annual report on children and armed conflict found 22,495 children in 2024 were killed, wounded, denied humanitarian support or recruited for conflict. It highlighted a 44% rise in attacks on schools and 35% rise in sexual violence against children. 'This must serve as a wake-up call. We are at the point of no return,' said Virginia Gamba, the special representative of the UN secretary general for children and armed conflict. 'Children living amid hostilities are being stripped of their childhood. Instead of recognising the special protection afforded to children, governments and armed groups around the world blatantly ignore international law that defines a child as anyone under 18.' The report verified 41,370 incidents of violations against children – including 5,149 that occurred earlier but were only verified in 2024 – with 4,856 in Gaza, primarily carried out by the Israeli security forces, including killings, injuries and the denial of permits for medical treatment. It verified 22 cases of Palestinian boys being used by Israeli forces as human shields in Gaza and five in the occupied West Bank. It also highlighted rises in violence against children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia, Nigeria and Haiti. The number of incidents was the highest since the UN began verifying reports in 1996. The report also said there was an increase in the number of children suffering multiple violations, from 2,684 in 2023 to 3,137 in 2024, especially in cases where abductions, recruitment and sexual violence converged. 'To normalise this level of violence against children is to accept the dismantling of our collective humanity. The level of alarm is unprecedented. Governments must act immediately to turn the tide of grief, trauma and loss borne by children,' said Helen Pattinson, CEO of War Child UK. Of more than 4,000 incidents recorded in DRC, more than half involved children being recruited by armed groups. There was also a 35% rise in sexual violence against children in 2024, with almost 2,000 cases. More than a quarter were recorded in Haiti, with 406 cases of rape and 160 involving gang rape. There were 419 cases of sexual violence in Nigeria, 358 in DRC and 267 in Somalia. The report said it was concerned by the 'dramatic' rise in gang rape and the abduction of girls for sexual slavery, which it said highlighted how sexual violence against children was being used as a weapon of war. Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said sexual violence 'must be treated with the same gravity as guns and bombs'. 'Sexual violence against children in conflict is a crime which once took place in the shadows but is now more and more becoming used as an overt tactic of war,' said Ashing. 'No one should have to endure the pain and humiliation of rape and sexual exploitation and violence, and it is particularly deplorable when a child is subjected to this brutality.'
