Mo Thuairim
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Israel-Hamas war
(...)
This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site.
“They didn’t leave us air to breathe,” said Zawahri, 52, describing a months-long campaign of violence and intimidation that intensified in the last two weeks. First villagers were barred from grazing lands, and the spring, then violence reached their homes.
“They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable.”
(...)
This was not an individual tragedy. Men from Angels of Peace are part of a broad, violent and very successful political project to expand Israeli control of the West Bank that has accelerated, say activists, since the 7 October attacks by Hamas launched a war with Israel.
(...)
“This has been the most successful land-grab strategy since 1967,” said Yehuda Shaul, a prominent activist who is director of the Israeli Center for Public Affairs thinktank, and a founder of Breaking the Silence, an NGO that exposes military abuses in occupied areas.
(...)
About 450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now Area C of the West Bank – the area under full Israeli military and political control – since the occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalistic reasons, and others by the cheaper cost of living.
Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace, but until recently most focus has been on communities of houses rather than herder outposts.
In September, the UN warned about rising settler violence targeting Palestinian herders and driving them from their homes and land.
(...)
Now with the Israeli military preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, diplomats concerned about rescuing hostages in Gaza and averting regional war, and a national mood of fury after the massacre of 1,400 people on 7 October, there is little focus on the West Bank.
In a climate of fear for Palestinians – the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said soldiers and settlers have killed 62 Palestinians over 10 days – the displacement of herders has sped up, say activists.
(...)
Herder settlers living near the village of al-Mu’arrajat had begun stopping Palestinians, asking for their IDs and telling them they had 24 hours to leave their homes, said Alia Mlehat, 27.
They had blocked people from leaving the village, pulled people out of their cars, and driven between homes, she said. They all had assault rifles and sometimes shot into the air.
“Since the beginning of the war, no one can go anywhere,” she said. “It is a slow process of deepening fear … there is no way out, as the war has restricted our lives.”
(...)
“Palestinian herders should be self-reliant based on their established livelihoods. Instead they need humanitarian assistance because of settler violence and the failure of Israeli authorities to hold perpetrators accountable,” the UN OCHA report said.
The impact was so serious, it may amount to a war crime, the statement added. Along with demolitions, evictions and restrictions on movement and construction, the attacks on herders created “a coercive environment that contributes to displacement that may amount to forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention”.
(...)
www.theguardian.com
‘The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967’ as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory
Herders report violence driving them from their homes in accelerating, aggressive and highly effective campaign(...)
This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site.
“They didn’t leave us air to breathe,” said Zawahri, 52, describing a months-long campaign of violence and intimidation that intensified in the last two weeks. First villagers were barred from grazing lands, and the spring, then violence reached their homes.
“They came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an 85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became unlivable.”
(...)
This was not an individual tragedy. Men from Angels of Peace are part of a broad, violent and very successful political project to expand Israeli control of the West Bank that has accelerated, say activists, since the 7 October attacks by Hamas launched a war with Israel.
(...)
“This has been the most successful land-grab strategy since 1967,” said Yehuda Shaul, a prominent activist who is director of the Israeli Center for Public Affairs thinktank, and a founder of Breaking the Silence, an NGO that exposes military abuses in occupied areas.
(...)
About 450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now Area C of the West Bank – the area under full Israeli military and political control – since the occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalistic reasons, and others by the cheaper cost of living.
Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace, but until recently most focus has been on communities of houses rather than herder outposts.
In September, the UN warned about rising settler violence targeting Palestinian herders and driving them from their homes and land.
(...)
Now with the Israeli military preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, diplomats concerned about rescuing hostages in Gaza and averting regional war, and a national mood of fury after the massacre of 1,400 people on 7 October, there is little focus on the West Bank.
In a climate of fear for Palestinians – the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said soldiers and settlers have killed 62 Palestinians over 10 days – the displacement of herders has sped up, say activists.
(...)
Herder settlers living near the village of al-Mu’arrajat had begun stopping Palestinians, asking for their IDs and telling them they had 24 hours to leave their homes, said Alia Mlehat, 27.
They had blocked people from leaving the village, pulled people out of their cars, and driven between homes, she said. They all had assault rifles and sometimes shot into the air.
“Since the beginning of the war, no one can go anywhere,” she said. “It is a slow process of deepening fear … there is no way out, as the war has restricted our lives.”
(...)
“Palestinian herders should be self-reliant based on their established livelihoods. Instead they need humanitarian assistance because of settler violence and the failure of Israeli authorities to hold perpetrators accountable,” the UN OCHA report said.
The impact was so serious, it may amount to a war crime, the statement added. Along with demolitions, evictions and restrictions on movement and construction, the attacks on herders created “a coercive environment that contributes to displacement that may amount to forcible transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention”.
(...)
‘The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967’ as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory
Herders report violence driving them from their homes in accelerating, aggressive and highly effective campaign
