Latest news with #Jarbou
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IBM must face discrimination claim from White male worker, judge says
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. IBM must face a former worker's charge that it discriminated against him for being a White male, a Michigan district court judge determined Wednesday (Dill v. International Business Machines Corp.). The former employee in IBM's consulting division alleged that despite consistently positive reviews, the company suddenly placed him on a performance improvement plan in July 2023 and then terminated him in October. He contended the reasons used — that he was not bringing in work or meeting client demand — were a pretext to fire him in order to further IBM's diversity goals. The pretext argument had merit, Judge Hala Jarbou determined, because the structure of IBM's diversity program may have incentivized his managers to discriminate against White males, she said. With DEI increasingly becoming a compliance issue for employers, the lawsuit against IBM shows how courts may consider certain kinds of programs to be potentially discriminatory. For example, Jarbou noted that IBM's program went beyond a diversity aspiration or goal. The plaintiff 'allege[d] that IBM's CEO set specific percentage targets for the racial and gender composition of IBM's workforce and then IBM implemented a system of financial incentives to reward executives who worked to achieve those targets,' according to the lawsuit. 'IBM's CEO also suggested that executives who did not make progress could be penalized by being fired or having their pay reduced.' While IBM argued that the incentive plan only applied to executive employees, Jarbou said the company's corporate documents did not define 'executive' and could potentially apply to 4,000 workers who fall within that designation. Jarbou also noted that IBM's reason for termination — having a 'low-utilization rate' — was not unusual, with the same situation allegedly applying to more than half of employees in his division. In addition, the new expectations imposed on the worker in the performance improvement plan 'were apparently unrealistic, as he could not control whether IBM signed a new client or whether one of its existing clients chose [him] as its consultant,' the judge said. Even before the second Trump administration and the new target on DEI, attorneys have long warned that poorly structured diversity programs could put employers at risk for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During a SHRM panel in June 2024, attorneys Jonathan Segal, Victoria Lipnic and Rae Vann discussed the types of legally questionable practices employers sometimes use. Quotas, set asides and preferences are all prohibited by Title VII, they said. They also highlighted a fourth problematic practice: tying management compensation to quantitative diversity goals. The plaintiff in Dill v. IBM alleged that IBM tied executive compensation to DEI and set specific quotas, among other practices. More recently, Segal explained how employers can re-evaluate their programs — and what other issues they should be aware of — in an op-ed for HR Dive. IBM did not respond to a request for comment by press time. Sign in to access your portfolio
Reuters
26-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
IBM must face white worker's lawsuit over diversity goals
March 26 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Michigan on Wednesday refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing IBM of forcing out a white male consultant in order to further its goals of building a more diverse workforce. U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou in Lansing, Michigan, said, opens new tab plaintiff Randall Dill's claims that IBM set specific targets for the racial and gender composition of its workforce and offered financial incentives for his supervisors and other executives to achieve them were enough to allow the case to move forward. "Taken as true, Dill's allegations plausibly support an inference that IBM improperly considers race or gender as a factor in employment-related decisions," wrote Jarbou, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term. Jarbou denied IBM's motion to dismiss the 2024 lawsuit, allowing the case to move toward trial. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Andrew Block of America First Legal, the conservative group representing Dill, said: 'We look forward to continuing to litigate this case and fight for justice on behalf of our client." America First Legal was founded by Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Republican President Donald Trump, and has filed a series of lawsuits and complaints claiming companies' diversity policies are unlawful. In one of those cases, a federal judge in Los Angeles last year rejected CBS' motion to dismiss a white screenwriter's claims that the network's diversity efforts led it to deny him a staff position on the show "SEAL Team." Trump has barred federal agencies and government contractors from adopting workplace diversity, equity and inclusion policies and has said his administration will investigate companies, schools and nonprofits that implement them. And the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws, has warned that many common workforce DEI initiatives such as diversity training may be unlawful. Civil rights advocates say DEI initiatives are necessary to remedy historic discrimination and for employers to comply with anti-discrimination laws. Trump and his supporters claim diversity policies are discriminatory and erode merit-based decisionmaking. Dill says he was placed on a performance improvement plan in July 2023 despite receiving only positive feedback in his seven years as a senior managing consultant at IBM. The plan was impossible to complete and Dill was fired in 2023, according to his complaint. Dill says IBM had race and sex quota systems that guided hiring and promotion decisions and that it based executives' bonuses in part on whether they had met those goals, giving them a strong incentive to push out white men like him. IBM has said that it does not use hiring quotas and never has, and that Dill's claims are baseless. In moving to dismiss the lawsuit, the company argued that Dill had exaggerated the scope of its incentive program for executives and had failed to identify female or non-white coworkers who received preferential treatment. Jarbou on Wednesday said there was a plausible connection between the incentive plan and Dill's firing, and that on a motion to dismiss details about other workers were irrelevant. "At this stage, Dill has provided enough facts to state viable race and gender discrimination claims against IBM," she wrote. The case is Dill v. International Business Machines Corp, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, No. 1:24-cv-00852. For Dill: Andrew Block of America First Legal; Christopher Berry of Smith Haughey Rice & Roegge For IBM: Alison Furtaw of Dykema Gossett; David Foster of Hogan Lovells; and Emily Petroski of Jackson Lewis IBM fired white worker to fulfill diversity goals, lawsuit claims Ex-Trump aide's group files complaints over judges' diversity pushes Ex-Trump administration officials target corporate diversity efforts Despite Trump order, abandoning DEI could land companies in legal trouble What is DEI, a practice Trump is trying to dismantle?
Rudaw Net
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Rudaw Net
Druze, Kurds share ‘harmonic' relationship, vision for Syria's future: Senior Druze cleric
Also in Interview Germany must have 'clear demands' for Syria: State premier Germany welcomes immigrants, but deports criminals: State minister Nothing to change in Ukraine-Russia war soon: MP Whole families wiped out in Syrian violence, says religious freedom advocate A+ A- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A senior Druze cleric from Syria's southern Suwayda province highlighted his community's 'harmonic' relationship with the Kurdish 'brothers' in northeast Syria (Rojava), emphasizing their shared political vision for Syria's future and alignment in demands and efforts. 'There is good communication between our people in the Kurdish regions and the people of Suwayda,' Yousef al-Jarbou, one of three Sheikh al-Aql (leaders of wisdom) of the Druze community in Syria, told Rudaw on Monday. 'We see our relationship with the Kurds as one of harmony and shared political vision, particularly regarding Syria's future. There is significant alignment in our demands and efforts,' he added. In early March, Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) chief Mazloum Abdi signed a landmark agreement to 'integrate all civil and military institutions' in Rojava under the administration of the Syrian state, 'including border crossings, the [Qamishli International] Airport, and oil and gas fields.' Jarbou said that the Druze were 'very pleased with this agreement.' He described the accord as 'a positive step to prevent bloodshed and avoid military confrontations' and 'a good step toward the future' of Syria. At the same time, the senior Druze cleric reiterated his community's rejection of Syria's interim constitution in its current draft. In mid-March, Sharaa signed a 53-article constitutional declaration that centers on Islamic jurisprudence, mandates that the country's president must be Muslim, and sets a five-year transitional period. It also maintains Syria's official name as the Syrian "Arab" Republic. The interim constitution also grants Sharaa exclusive executive power, the authority to appoint one-third of the legislature, and the ability to appoint judges to the constitutional court, which is the body that can hold him accountable. Jarbou stated that the declaration 'does not rise up to the aspirations of the Syrian people,' including the Druze community, and warned that it could steer Syria toward a 'non-participatory state.' He added that under these conditions, the Druze cannot 'participate' in the upcoming government. Following the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early December, both the Rojava administration and the Druze community have urged decentralization, despite the new Damascus leadership's rejection of federalism. Jarbou reiterated that decentralization is not equivalent to 'secession,' emphasizing that Syria's Druze would accept whatever system emerges from 'a comprehensive consensus' among the Syrian people across all governorates. Below is the full transcript of the interview. Rudaw: How do you view the constitutional declaration? Do you believe it meets the aspirations of the Syrian people? Youssef al-Jarbou: In reality, the Syrian constitutional declaration does not fulfill the aspirations of the Syrian people. There are strengths and weaknesses, but the weaknesses are fundamental. The declaration appears to lean toward a non-inclusive state, and there are concerns about extremist undertones in it. We hope this constitutional declaration can be amended - as it is, after all, a draft constitution - to address its shortcomings. I don't know how the current government views the possibility of amending the constitution to align with the aspirations of the Syrian people. We want a constitution that embraces all components of Syrian society, ensuring freedom, dignity, and full independence for Syria as a sovereign state, free from any external domination, while safeguarding citizens' religious and social rights and guaranteeing general freedoms. We want a constitution that truly represents the diverse components of the Syrian society. Did the interim constitution's drafting committee include any representative from Suwayda? I don't think so. We were not consulted to nominate anyone for the constitutional drafting committee from the outset. I also don't believe anyone from Suwayda province was represented in this committee. Speaking of the provisions in the constitution, which ones do you disapprove of or believe need changing? First and foremost, with regards to the provisions stating that the religion of the state is Islam and that the president must be Muslim, we don't object to these two points per se, but we oppose the reliance on Islamic jurisprudence as base for drafting the constitutional declaration as it opens the door to jurisprudential interpretation. I recently told one of the TV channels that this could lead us to the jurisprudence of Ibn Taymiyyah or Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab which are extremist schools of thought that reject the other. This could plunge us into sectarian or religious conflicts over jurisprudential interpretations. We believe a civil constitution that guarantees the freedom of all Syrian citizens, regardless of their background, is the true safeguard for the rights of the Syrian people. This constitution will be in effect for the next five years marking the transitional period in Syria. If its provisions remain unchanged, will you participate in the new government? I don't think we can participate under these conditions. Another notable issue is the absence of a provision specifying the president's nationality. Previously, one of the requirements was that the president must be a Syrian Arab for at least five years. Now, this provision is missing from the constitutional declaration. Additionally, we noticed the abolition of the prime minister's position and the expansion of powers for the president and the presidential or national council, which is structured around six or seven leading figures headed by Mr. al-Sharaa. This centralizes decision-making within a single faction and a single group. Decisions concerning Syria's future as an inclusive state for all Syrians are now monopolized by one group, which we see as problematic. Decision-making should be participatory. There's also the issue of the separation of powers, there's no clear accountability. For example, if a minister is appointed, can they only be held accountable by the president or by the legislature as well? We don't see the benefit of granting ministers or government officials broad powers without oversight. Another controversial point is the composition of the legislature, where one-third of its members are appointed by the president, and the other two-thirds are nominated. This deprives citizens of the right to choose their representatives. In most countries, the People's Council or parliament represents the citizens, voices their concerns, monitors the government's work, and ensures the implementation of service programs. Allowing the president to appoint one-third of the council opens the door to blocking any decision that doesn't align with this faction's interests, which is also another flaw in the constitution. Speaking of the demands of Suwayda's residents and the Druze spiritual leaders, how do they envision the state's policy - centralized or decentralized? In fact, our demands align with those of the Syrian people as a whole, serving the next phase and all Syrians. In Suwayda, we have no ambitions or orientations that differ from those of the Syrian people. The upcoming political mechanism, whether decentralized or federal, must have broad approval across all Syrian provinces. If there is consensus on whether the next phase should involve centralized governance, decentralization, federalism, or self-administration, Suwayda cannot unilaterally adopt a separate political model. When we talk about decentralization, we mean for all of Syria, not just a specific region. There have been many statements from Suwayda calling for decentralization, similar to those coming from northeast Syria (Rojava) aiming to guarantee the rights of all components. This does not mean secession. What is your view? Decentralization is not secession; it is a form of governance. We do not oppose decentralization at this stage, but we demand that this direction be based on a general consensus among the Syrian people. If there is agreement on decentralization, we support it, and if there is agreement on federalism, we support that as well. This is my personal opinion, and I believe many in Suwayda share it. Regarding the military council in Suwayda, why hasn't it surrendered its arms yet? What are the reasons? In the past period, we suffered from terrorist attacks from several factions and endured losses in lives and equipment. We have concerns about the next phase, as full stability has not yet been achieved, where the state can fully impose its control over all Syrian territories, including Suwayda, and ensure security. At that point, there will be no need to bear arms. Currently, our weapons are not directed at the state or any party but are for self-defense, protecting our land, honor, and lives. The next phase requires organizing the status of armed factions and cooperating with the state, paving the way for weapon regulation. We may reach a stage where we no longer need these weapons, and control returns to the state. What is your response to the recent Israeli positions? How do you interpret them? Recently, there has been much talk about Israel being a guarantor of security for Suwayda and the Druze, but in my perception this is being exploited politically by the Israeli government to send a message to the surroundings that the Druze seek secession, which is untrue. We have not requested protection from Israel, not in the past and not in the future. Our true protector is God, and we are accustomed to defending ourselves with our own means, without relying on external forces. International and regional interventions in Syria's internal politics have imposed realities on the ground, but we strive to rely on ourselves with all we have. What comes from abroad as part of international agendas is beyond our control. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa's statements spoke of a participatory Syria that embraces all sects. Were you asked to participate in the government or the drafting of the constitution? The rhetoric of the Syrian government, led by Mr. al-Sharaa, has been positive and reassuring, especially to the people of Suwayda, conveying that the state is cooperative and will do everything necessary to rebuild Syria into a civilized and advanced nation. Personally, I have not been contacted regarding participation in the government or the constitution. I don't know if there have been communications with other sheikhs or officials, but to my knowledge - perhaps through indirect channels, especially with some young political figures who were part of the opposition - there may have been some coordination. However, this is just a possibility, and I have no confirmed information. We hope to have a role in the new government. How would you describe your relationship with the Kurds in Rojava? Is there any communication between you? Yes, there is good communication between our people in the Kurdish regions and the people of Suwayda. During the 2018 kidnapping crisis following the Islamic State (ISIS) attack, the Kurds offered significant assistance in securing the release of the abducted women. Our Kurdish brothers proposed exchanging high-ranking ISIS leaders held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for the kidnapped women. We see our relationship with the Kurds as one of harmony and shared political vision, particularly regarding Syria's future. There is significant alignment in our demands and efforts. What is your opinion on the agreement between SDF Chief Mazloum Abdi and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa? We were very pleased with this agreement, even though we were not privy to all its details. In principle, it was a positive step to prevent bloodshed and avoid military confrontations. The agreement paved the way for reuniting the Syrian society and removed the specter of war from the region and our Kurdish brothers. I believe the concerned parties are best positioned to evaluate its outcomes, but from my perspective, it was a good step toward the future. What are your key demands from the Syrian government? Today, we suffer from the absence of state authority in Suwayda, leading to chaos and a governance vacuum. Some institutions are barely functional, while others, like the judiciary and civil registry, are completely inactive. Births have gone unregistered for three months, marriages are not being documented, and there are obstacles in issuing passports and ID cards. The main reason is the absence of the state. We have demanded and continue to demand, the return of state authority. There were initial understandings and general agreements at first, but some disputes arose. We hope these will soon be resolved so the state can reassert its control over Suwayda. These are service-related demands. What about political demands? We want representation in the legislative body, a say in drafting the constitution, and meaningful participation in the upcoming government, one that reflects our component's rightful place in Syria's political landscape.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Yahoo
8 years in prison for Rockford-area contractor, Ponzi schemer
LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) — A federal judge on Tuesday sent a Rockford-area builder to prison for eight years, the harshest term possible under sentencing guidelines. Matthew Mencarelli, 39, is of swindling 15 victims out of $1,615,180 by convincing them to invest in a phony fiber optic infrastructure project. 'He used the money to finance his lifestyle and make Ponzi-type payments to earlier investors,' wrote U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge in a news release announcing the sentence. 'He approached friends and acquaintances from his family's yacht club and country club and told them he had lucrative contracts with local governments in Traverse City. … In truth, there were no such contracts and Mencarelli used the money instead to finance his lifestyle, pouring at least $400,000 into a custom-built home.' 'Habitual liar': Rockford-area contractor spent investments on vehicles, yacht club, victim says Federal prosecutors will try to seize that property on Post Drive Northeast in an effort to recoup and return funds to victims. The home is currently owned by Mencarelli's parents. In a federal courtroom in Lansing Tuesday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Hala Jarbou refused to give Mencarelli a break based on his entering a guilty plea to seven counts of wire fraud the day the jury trial was set to begin. Mencarelli's defense attorney had filed a motion to reduce the sentencing guideline range, arguing that Mencarelli had accepted responsibility for his crimes. Jarbou rejected the defense motion. She noted that, after , Mencarelli proceeded to lie to probation officers in his pre-sentence interview, during which he tried to shift blame for his crimes to an individual who died in 2022. 'I'm guilty': Rockford-area contractor pleads in $1.7 million scheme 'I think my jaw dropped when I read that,' said Jarbou from the bench, before sentencing Mencarelli to eight years and one month in prison. In its sentencing memorandum, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Grand Rapids documented Mencarelli's shift-blaming effort, calling his pre-sentencing statement a 'whopper.' 'When asked what he did that made him guilty of the offense,' wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Stiffler, 'Mencarelli said, 'I take accountability for the actions I was involved in with the people I was hanging out with,' … 'My skill sets were utilized to make things happen'… (and) 'I got everything ready to go and (the now deceased individual) left the scene. He went radio silent.'' Jarbou also noted that it wasn't until Mencarelli realized the probation office would not recommend a shorter sentence that the no-show contractor sent the judge a letter. Target 8: Rockford-area contractor accused of taking cash, not delivering 'Then I get a very nice, spectacularly written statement,' said Jarbou during sentencing. 'Too little, too late. I don't find it be genuine. Accepting responsibility only as a 'last resort' does not constitute acceptance.' Federal prosecutors also pointed to Mencarelli's failure to turn over financial records and his recent arrest on a domestic violence complaint, which occurred while he was out on bond pending trial. 'Mencarelli's wife reported that he tackled her and tried to take her phone,' wrote Stiffler in his sentencing memo. 'She told Mencarelli she was going to call police, and Mencarelli proceeded to run away from the scene. Officers followed with a K9 to a barn just north of the house and located Mencarelli hiding in a loft of the barn.' One of Mencarelli's victims spoke at sentencing. 'I grew up vacationing in Holland, Michigan during summer with (Mencarelli) and his family,' wrote Tom, who asked that we not used his last name for privacy purposes. 'In that time, Matt built trust and gained personal knowledge of me, my interests & financial being. He used this information to draw me into his scheme of lies, deceit and false construction investments he made up to live a life outside his family's income means.' Jarbou received letters supporting Mencarelli's character from eight individuals, including family friends, past coaches and his mom. In his own letter to Jarbou, Mencarelli said his crimes began when the economy slowed. 'Christmas miracle' after contractor allegedly ripped off Rockford family 'In 2018, I began to see a huge slow down in the size of projects I was involved in,' wrote Mencarelli. 'I began to panic as customers and contractors started to slow pay or delay payments for no reason. This problem became common throughout the industry. At this time, I had also started to build my family's first home. As these things happened, I decided that I had no option but to obtain financing from others. I always intended to repay these investors. I did repay early investors. I expected things to turn around, but that did not happen. I panicked more and more. I created an investment project to cover accumulating costs. There was no such project.' Mencarelli told the judge that he wrote the letter to 'convey the deep regret' he felt for his actions. Target 8 first exposed Mencarelli when he and then failed to renovate their basement to create a space for Johnny Agar, who has cerebral palsy. Good Samaritans from the building industry and built the basement at no cost to the Agars, who called it a 'Christmas miracle.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Palestinian Forces Are Openly Helping Israel Fight Its West Bank War
The circling drones buzz overhead as explosions echo. Bursts of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and fighters from the Palestinian refugee camp ring out. Israeli military jeeps patrol bulldozed roads outside the government hospital. Displaced camp resident, 29 year-old Noureddine Jarbou, sits in the courtyard watching the unending Israeli assault, his catheter bag attached to the side of his wheelchair. Paralyzed from the waist down during an Israeli raid on the camp three years ago and then taken prisoner for two years, Jarbou looks across the choppy dirt road at his shattered coffee stand. Israeli troops have taken positions on rooftops and in buildings overlooking the area around the hospital, while Jeeps control the streets. It's the fear of a potential sniper's bullet that separates Jarbou from his ransacked livelihood. 'Yesterday the army came, destroyed the lock, and had coffee,' Jarbou says about the Israeli soldiers he watched breaking into his roadside kiosk. 'They smashed my CCTV cameras.' This is not Gaza, where people are finally getting a moment of reprieve, amid an increasingly shaky cease-fire deal, after surviving 15 months of astonishing carnage that international human rights groups and United Nations bodies call genocide. It's the city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank — the new focus of Israel's war as it adapts for the second Donald Trump era. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the Gaza cease-fire to pivot the war, launching a military assault from land and air across the northern West Bank on January 21, adding the destruction of its Palestinian fighters to Israel's war goals. His defense minister, Israel Katz, has declared that the army will remain in Jenin's camp indefinitely as Israeli attacks widen throughout the Palestinian heartland, displacing an estimated 40,000 people so far and killing more than 70. For Palestinains, it is just further confirmation that Israel's actual goal of the war is to destroy them as a people and disposess them of their homeland. Adapting its war to exploit the social and political divisions instilled by its occupation, Israel's battle is fought on several fronts by different forces. The Israeli military is laying waste to refugee camps and working class neighborhoods that are home to Palestinian guerrilla groups, while locking in Palestinian cities, towns, and villages across the West Bank with checkpoints and roadblocks. There are also the settlers, protected by the Israeli army and often organized in militias, who attack and displace Palestinians to seize their land. At the same time, the lightly armed, Western-backed Palestinian Authority security forces have been waging their own protracted battle in the same places against the same people as the Israeli military. The conversation with Jarbou is interrupted by the rumble of Israeli armored personnel carriers driving past the hospital, down a road littered with overturned cars and mounds of dirt and concrete. Then, two Palestinian civilian plated black vans, filled with plain-clothed and uniformed Palestinian security forces dawning balaclavas, emerge from a street leading to the bullet-riddled Palestinian Authority compound. The building is home to security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — a limited security force that polices Palestinians but has no power over Israeli soldiers or settlers. Driving onto what's left of a road the Israeli army restricts for its own vehicles and limited ambulance use, the vans are escorted by an Israeli Jeep and military bulldozer to the hospital, where staff say PA forces run an unofficial operations room. The small convoy is an unprecedented public display of collaboration for a security force that traditionally disappears from the streets and retreats to their barracks when the Israeli army rolls in, and the officers in the van know it. As soon as the vans turn into the ER entrance, one officer in civilian clothes gets out and sternly orders us to delete any images or footage of the convoy, threatening ominous consequences if we don't comply. Long suspected of intelligence sharing with Israel, the PA has a track record of targeting the same Palestinians involved in anti-occupation activities as Israel's military. Not wanting to be seen as working alongside their occupier, cooperation has always strictly remained in the shadows. Camp residents and hospital staff express shock at the extent of open coordination they have seen since the Israeli army returned, saying it's a first for them. 'I have never seen such a direct interaction between the two,' Jarbou says. Several workers at the hospital describe PA forces using the roof to fire into Jenin's refugee camp prior to the Israeli invasion and arresting a doctor for treating wounded fighters. They say that all employees are required to turn in any militant from the camp seeking treatment to the PA. Awaiting surgery for injuries caused in the raid in April 2022, when a hail of Israeli bullets were pumped into him as he stood in the street, Jarbou recounts now losing his home in late January to the army that had already taken the use of his legs. Displaced from the camp on January 21, his wife and three-year-old daughter have taken refuge with their relatives in a nearby village. Jarbou and his wife were able to briefly go back to their home on January 23 to collect belongings and found streets full of petrified people as hundreds of their neighbors fled for their lives. Jarbou and his wife's passage was brokered by the Palestine Red Crescent, the main ambulance and first aid service operating in Jenin, but after struggling down the bulldozed streets under an expanding assault, they found Israeli soldiers in their apartment and using their building as a sniper's nest. 'I saw displaced people, families leaving their houses under the eyes of the military, who were filming every single person,' says Jarbou. Shuffling in discomfort from his injuries, he describes people being detained and taken prisoner randomly, amidst scenes of desperation that invoke images of Gaza's destruction. 'I saw elderly people, some with walkers and wheelchairs. People carrying their children, blankets, and food.' The UN office for humanitarian affairs estimates that 90 percent of the 24,000 residents have fled the densely packed 0.16 square-mile camp. The camp was built for Palestinians forced to flee the Haifa area amid the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from homes and land that became Israel during the 1948 war, a defining national trauma that Palestinians call the Nakba, or Catastrophe. The Israeli army now freely roams Jenin's streets. Devastating scenes of war wreckage scar the refugee camp. The few residents still present go between buildings with facades ripped off by shells and those reduced to rubble, in a desperate bid to make it home, dodging the Israeli troops and snipers controlling the surrounding streets. As the Israeli army blasts through the refugee camp, hunting the locally organized groups of fighters, PA security forces continue to do battle with the same groups in neighboring streets and towns. Israel's military refused to comment on its coordination with the PA in Jenin, denying that it ordered camp residents to evacuate, while refusing to say when or if the thousands of displaced residents will be allowed to return home. IN GAZA, THE GUNS are silent and the skies are clear of drones and warplanes for the first time since 2023, after Hamas led the deadly Oct. 7 attacks against Israel. For the 2.3 million Palestinians who have been continuously displaced and starved under the Israeli siege, it's an unimaginable break from the constant death from above. Survival itself feels like victory after Israel razed their homes to their ground, shattering civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and the water supply, while killing more than 60,000 people, according to Gaza's health ministry. 'I am happy the bloodshed will stop, even if [just] for some months or days,' Noor Alyacoubi says with trepidation. The 27-year-old mother of a toddler remained in Gaza City while most residents fled south at the beginning of the war. Running for safety between neighborhoods as the Israeli army invaded, she saw its shells blow up everything she knew while struggling to keep her family alive, battling sickness and hunger. A writer and translator, she's been one of the few documenting life in northern Gaza while surviving what Human Rights Watch describes as an 'extermination.' Throughout the war she's written about her experiences for Al Jazeera, the Qatari funded international news network that's been the only foreign media outlet to report from Gaza during the war. Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed by the Israeli military since the start of the war, and the network has been banned by both Israel and the PA. Even with nothing to return to on streets made unrecognizable, hundreds of thousands of Gaza's Palestinians rushed home to crater-filled communities of broken concrete and rebar to bury the dead and try to rebuild. 'My husband went to see if his sister's house was still standing,' says Alyacoubi after the cease-fire took hold.' He also wanted to go to Jabalia [refugee camp] to find and bury his cousin's body.' Still out of reach, she continues to hope for basic survival, 'to sleep comfortably, to eat well, return to work, reunite with family, go to the sea, take some fresh air, and walk through the streets without fear.' While Palestinians in Gaza are determined to rebuild, Trump, who recently began his second presidential term, has issued a plan for a very different outcome. (It's a plan that could be hastened by the commander-in-chief's call to tear up the cease-fire if all Israeli captives are not released on noon Saturday, encouraging Israel to return to war after Hamas suspended future hostage releases in protest of violations of the agreement.) Standing at a joint White House press conference last week with Netanyahu, Trump rewrote foreign policy to officially embrace ethnic cleansing in the Middle East, declaring that the U.S. should replace Israel as Gaza's occupier and redevelop it after its Palestinian residents are forced out. 'I have no doubt that the king in Jordan and the general in Egypt will give us the land we need to get this done,' Trump said about Jordan's King Abduallah and Egypt's President Abdel Fatah al Sisi, contending the permanent displacement that Gaza's Palestinians to neighboring countries would pave the way for what he called a 'Riviera of the Middle East.' Egypt and Jordan, which border Israel and the occupied territories, swiftly rejected the idea, refusing to accommodate any expulsion. Their condemnation was echoed by Saudi Arabia after Netanyahu suggested it host a Palestinian state for those expelled from Gaza. However, Netanyahu gushed from the podium about Trump changing the course of history, while the president added that he's also considering support for Israeli annexation of the West Bank. AFTER A SERIES of extended Israeli army incursions into the West Bank in the summer and fall, the PA launched their own campaign. Starting on December 5, the operation that sealed the Jenin camp, knocked out its power, and trapped residents in a bloody crossfire officially came to an end when the Israeli army arrived on January 21 — the day after Trump took office, and two days into Gaza's cease-fire. According to a ranking officer in the PA security forces, who spoke to Rolling Stone on condition of anonymity, the PA operation launched during the final months of the Biden administration is unlikely to end soon and is the result of pressure from their U.S. and EU funders. He says the Gaza cease-fire and Israel's invasion of the West Bank won't affect the PA's campaign. Sitting in a drab, fluorescent-lit Palestinian General Intelligence office in Ramallah, the Israeli-occupied central West Bank city that serves as the hilly seat of PA governance, General Anwar Rajab acknowledges unprecedented coordination with Israel. Three black Volkswagen vans with civilian plates, the same model as those escorted by the Israeli military in Jenin, are parked in front of a suburban office building. However, dressed in full military attire, the stalky, gray-haired spokesman for the PA's security forces denies the kind of coordination that Rolling Stone observed in Jenin is happening. 'There is no joint work with occupation forces in the field,' he says. Nine miles, a wall, and checkpoint away from Jerusalem, the divided city where Israel has its capital and Palestinians hope to create a capital in the occupied east, Rajab paints the Palestinian fighters from camps as Iranian proxies — parroting an Israeli government talking point. Still, he acknowledges that even in the security forces, there have been arrests of those suspected of supporting or joining camp resistance groups, though he declines to give numbers. Responding to West Bank Palestinians' broadly felt loathing of the PA for widespread corruption and years of cooperation with Israeli security forces, Rajab presents what has been dubbed 'Operation Protect the Homeland' as a way of preventing the devastation of Gaza from coming to the West Bank. 'The issue is that we should not give this government the opportunity to do here what it did in Gaza,' says Rajab, accusing Israel's leaders of looking for an excuse to bring the scorched earth of Gaza to the West Bank. He knows the PA is powerless to slow the expanding, fortified Israeli suburban colonies that tower over and flank West Bank Palestinian communities to accommodate the 500,000 settlers deemed illegal by international law. Unable to even intervene to protect Palestinians against escalating attacks from armed settlers trying to displace them, he sees working with the U.S. while confronting his own people as the only option. 'America is the international community. Iran is the opposite of the international community,' says Rajab, as if speaking directly to Trump. 'We are a product of the international community.' For him, the repression is proof to Washington that the PA can take over Gaza, 17 years after it lost control of the coastal strip in a U.S.-backed bloody national split with Hamas. 'There is no shame in that,' he says. 'America is important.' It's a strategy that's failed to impact Netanyahu's commitment to preventing a Palestinian state — or Trump's proposal to expel Gaza's Palestinians. Nonetheless, Rajab sees resistance as futile. He points to the devastation in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israeli troops remain, as an example of the failure of armed resistance. 'Oct. 7 was a decision by Hamas with the support of Iran,' Rajab argues, placing the prime responsibility for killing, suffering, and displacement on Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic nationalist movement (deemed a terrorist organization across the West) that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. 'They took the decision to go to war alone, which brought us this Nakba.' For Shawan Jabarin — director of the Palestinian Human rights organization, Al Haq, the PA isn't acting in defense of Palestinian rights but rather is operating as a subcontractor of the occupation. He sees the choice to work with Israeli forces as the product of both corrupt officials looking to preserve their own wealth and power and those who believe it's the only way to minimize violence against Palestinians. 'Some of them do it in good faith,' he says. 'Others not.' Leaning back in his chair in a Ramallah office that the Israeli army raided and shuttered two and a half years ago, he describes how his staff in Gaza have spent the war documenting the atrocities they survived while living in the rubble. Seeing the war as shifting focus rather than ending, Al Haq and seven other groups in the Palestinian Human Rights Organization Council penned an open letter to Abbas condemning the PA. 'Amidst ongoing Israeli crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing,' reads the letter. 'Palestinian and International human rights organizations have documented numerous violations committed by Palestinian security forces against the public,' it continues, listing torture, collective punishment, repression of media freedoms, and arbitrary arrests. RAIN POURS DOWN on the impoverished Tulkarm refugee camp, flooding through the shell holes and demolished walls of peoples apartments. As broken streets turn to mud between crowded gray stucco apartment buildings, here too, 28 miles southwest of Jenin, the Israeli drones watch from above. Meeting in a narrow alleyway wedged between apartment buildings, 'Ibn Sumud,' a fighter with the Tulkarm Brigade recounts surviving six shots to the abdomen in a frantic running battle with Israeli forces last year. 'I literally picked up my intestines, put the gun away, and ran to hide somewhere,' says the urban guerilla in his mid-twenties, as he talks about narrowly surviving as friends were killed in front of him. Declining to give his name because he fears being targeted by both the PA and Israel, Sumud was arrested by both before he took up arms. 'They are our people, but they work against us,' he says about the PA security forces. 'In the end we're under two occupations.' The brigade, based on the same model as Jenin and other West Bank refugee camps, attracts young Palestinians from across the political spectrum. According to Sumud, those that take up arms in the camp are united by the view that combating Israeli armored vehicles and drones with assault rifles and IEDs is their only chance to win freedom, or at least shape their fate. Originally a member of Abbas' secular nationalist Fatah movement, he had left it for Hamas when he joined the Tulkarm Brigade. For him, it is not the party that matters but the willingness to resist occupation. Like Jenin, Tulkarm's camp has become an increasing target of both PA and Israeli forces since the war started, but in this Israeli assault, 10,000 residents have been forced out. Sumud says that their struggle is shaped by Israel's atrocities in Gaza and its expansion of the war across the Middle East, but it is defined by the violence of the segregation imposed upon them and the inability to change the worsening reality they were raised into. In the years before the war, Sumud worked in Israel and was an avid soccer fan of the Palestinian league. Now, he doesn't leave the camp, and his energy is focused on staying alive and fighting back as his friends get gunned down or blown up around him. He hopes Trump's return to office will ignite widespread rebellion across the West Bank, but he sees the war spreading either way: 'The war zone will extend under Trump.' — Ahmad al-Bazz contributed to reporting from the West Bank More from Rolling Stone Trump's Plan Comes Into Focus: Make America Corrupt Again John Oliver Returns to 'The Daily Show' to Declare America's 'Monarchy Era' Inside Trump and Musk's War on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
