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Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israeli military arrests eight in Masafer Yatta overnight after Israeli settler killing of Palestinian activist
Eight residents of the Palestinian hamlet of Umm al-Kheir in Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, were arrested overnight after an Israeli settler killed activist Awdah Hathaleen on Monday, The Times of Israel reported. According to Peace Now, the village head was among those detained when the military entered the hamlet at around 4.30am on Wednesday. Hathaleen was part of the Oscar-winning No Other Land film crew. Yinon Levi, the settler sanctioned by the US and other countries, was placed under house arrest on Tuesday. A video shared on Instagram on Monday by the co-director of No Other Land showed Levi firing indiscriminately at Palestinians in Umm al-Kheir. Four men arrested for throwing stones at Levi's bulldozer remain in Israeli detention.
Arab News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Two Palestinian families in Jerusalem self-demolish their homes to avoid Israeli fines
LONDON: Two Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem have self-demolished their homes to avoid steep financial penalties imposed by the Israeli municipality for building without a permit on Sunday. Israel denies building permits to Palestinians in Jerusalem in most cases, while it carries out planned expansion of Jewish settlements in the city and the occupied West Bank. From 1991 to 2018, Israeli authorities approved only 16.5 percent of building permits in Palestinian neighborhoods, while the remaining permits were issued for Israeli neighborhoods in West Jerusalem and settlements, according to the organization Peace Now. The Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem Governorate said that the Quraan family was forced to demolish their home in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Halawanis also demolished their residential building, comprising six housing units, in Beit Hanina, located north of Jerusalem. As a result, around 30 individuals, including children, have been left without homes. In the case that Israeli authorities carry out the destruction, the families will be required to pay for the cost of the demolition, which could vary and may total hundreds of thousands of Shekels. The Jerusalem Governorate said that this is part of an Israeli 'systematic policy of displacing' Palestinians from the city. 'Palestinian families in occupied Jerusalem are frequently denied building permits by Israeli authorities, leaving many with no legal option but to build without authorization,' it added. Human Rights Watch and other groups have criticized Israel's home demolition policy in Jerusalem as 'discriminatory.' Since Israel attacked Gaza in October 2023, authorities in Jerusalem have demolished 623 houses and other commercial facilities belonging to dozens of Palestinian families.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel has killed 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has escalated its violence in the occupied West Bank, killing 1,000 Palestinians. As the world was distracted by Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 56,331 people and uprooted nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, Israel ramped up its violent raids on the West Bank, as well as its silence as Israeli settlers attack and kill Palestinian villagers. The most recent casualty was Samer Bassam al-Zagharneh, a young man who was shot by Israeli soldiers on July 1. According to the Wafa Palestinian news agency, al-Zagharneh was killed near the separation barrier, which Israel began building in 2002 to divide Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and which cuts through Palestinian communities and agricultural fields. This is all you need to know about how we got here. Israeli forces and Israeli settlers from illegal settlements that are choking the West Bank. Settlers launch sudden, violent raids on towns, burning property, attacking people, and trying to drive them out of their homes. At the same time, the security forces have surrounded refugee camps and raided them relentlessly, driving yet more people from their homes and not allowing them to return. Many settlers have also been handed semi-automatic weapons and 'integrated' into Israeli forces in the West Bank, to compensate for all the personnel deployed to carry out the war on Gaza. This has blurred the lines between the security forces and settlers, empowering the latter to escalate violence against Palestinians. To displace Palestinians and annexe their land, according to residents, experts, rights groups, and observers. In 2024, Israel confiscated more Palestinian land in the West Bank than in the previous 20 years combined, according to Peace Now, an Israeli nonprofit tracking land theft in Palestine. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has led the charge after assuming control of the newly established 'Settlements Administration' in February 2023. The position allows Smotrich to advance Israel's de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank by working to extend Israeli civil law over the area, in direct contravention of international law. Smotrich has approved new outposts – illegal not only under international law but also under Israeli law – confiscated land, and enforced 'settlement and construction regulations'. In reality, Smotrich is relying on the occupation and settler violence to uproot Palestinians so that he can extend and approve new illegal Israeli settlements, Al Jazeera previously day. Israeli forces killed 70 Palestinians in the West Bank in the first month of 2025. Over the last two months, they have killed 34 people, according to the Shireen Monitor, a local observatory named after the murdered Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Many of the casualties were the result of Israel's ongoing raids. Israel says the raids are to root out Palestinian armed groups, which sprang up in 2021 to resist Israel's worsening violence and entrenching occupation, in refugee camps across the West Bank. However, Israel has reportedly committed myriad human rights abuses on the ground, such as killing unarmed civilians, preventing families from burying their murdered loved ones and razing entire neighbourhoods to the ground to trigger mass displacement. Israel is attacking the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Far'a and Nablus, generating mass displacement. Israel has used some of the same tactics it has deployed in Gaza – such as laying complete siege to the camps and uprooting most of the inhabitants, according to Forensic Architecture, a research group that investigates and monitors human rights abuses. Israel has also attacked medical facilities and bombed Tulkarem and Jenin camps, indiscriminately killing were about 1,800 settler attacks across the occupied West Bank between October 7, 2023, and December 16, 2024, according to data collected by Tech for Palestine, a collective of tech volunteers that monitor rights abuses and advocates for the liberation of Palestinians. What's more, the Israeli army reported that there were at least 414 settler attacks against Palestinians during the first half of 2025. Yet the real figure is likely higher. Many of the attacks have taken place in Area C. The 1993 Oslo Accords, which were signed between Israeli and Palestinian then-leaders to initiate a peace process, carved up the occupied West Bank into three zones: A, B and C. Area A is ostensibly under the full administrative and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) – an entity born out of the Oslo Accords – while Area B is under the PA's administrative governance and Israeli security. Area C makes up more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and is under Israeli administrative and security control. It doesn't look like it. The Israeli army and settlers have stepped up attacks against Palestinians in recent days. The United Nations has warned that the army is trying to evict 12 communities in Masafer Yatta, in the southern Hebron hills in Area C. Israel is trying to justify this expulsion as the area being a 'military zone', and, therefore, needed for military training – a pretext used to uproot Palestinians from their lands for decades. On June 25, about 100 heavily armed Israeli settlers violently attacked Palestinians in the village of Kfar Malik, killing three people. The settlers were reportedly trying to burn homes to the ground when Palestinians came out to try and stop them. In the neighbouring village of Taybeh, settlers burned a car to ashes, as seen in a video obtained by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group monitoring abuses against Palestinians. Al Jazeera has spoken to several Palestinians who say they are bracing for more attacks. They often say they are defenceless and fear any resistance will be met with greater force from Israeli troops and settlers.
Egypt Independent
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Israel approves biggest expansion of West Bank settlements in decades
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as in East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights, are considered illegal under international law. For months, Israel's military has carried out a massive operation in the West Bank, deploying tanks to the territory for the first time in decades and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. In February, Katz ordered the military 'to prepare for a prolonged presence' as the military evacuated Palestinian refugee camps. Within the last several weeks, Israeli forces have carried out multiple waves of raids and arrests across the West Bank. He added the new settlements are 'illegal under international law, further imperil the two-state solution, and do not protect Israel.' The decision this week to expand settlements sparked international criticism. The United Kingdom's minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer, called the move a 'deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood.' Jordan's foreign ministry also lambasted the move, saying in a statement that it 'represents a deliberate disregard for ongoing international calls to halt settlement activity and violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.' 'All Israeli actions and decisions in the West Bank are illegal and illegitimate,' the statement added. Earlier this month, France joined the UK and Canada to threaten 'concrete actions,' including targeted sanctions against Israel, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not allow far more aid into Gaza and cease settlement expansion in the West Bank. Peace Now blasted the government for making such a decision in the midst of a war. 'The government is making clear – again and without restraint – that it prefers deepening the occupation and advancing de facto annexation over pursuing peace,' the organization said. 'The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the Occupied Territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal.' The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), were designed to pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state and the realization of a two-state solution.
Daily Tribune
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Tribune
Israel announces creation of 22 settlements in West Bank
Israel announced yesterday the creation of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, putting further strain on relations with the international community already taxed by the war in Gaza. Both Britain and neighbouring Jordan slammed the move, with London calling it a 'deliberate obstacle' to Palestinian statehood. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and are seen as one of the main obstacles to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The decision to establish more, taken by the country's security cabinet, was announced by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, and Defence Minister Israel Katz, who is in charge of managing the communities. 'We have made a historic decision for the development of settlements: 22 new communities in Judea and Samaria, renewing settlement in the north of Samaria, and reinforcing the eastern axis of the State of Israel,' Smotrich said on X, using the Israeli terms for the southern and northern West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967. 'Next step: sovereignty!' he added. Katz said the initiative 'changes the face of the region and shapes the future of settlement for years to come'. Not all the 22 settlements are new, however. Some are existing outposts, while others are neighbourhoods of settlements that will become independent communities, according to the left-wing Israeli NGO Peace Now.
