“West Bank impunities.”
The starvation siege has begun.
A note to readers:
In the third week of April I gave a talk in Sirnach, Switzerland. It was my sixth such lecture to date and part of my ongoing Palestinian Voices project. Shortly thereafter I was called back to the States, where my 87-year-old father was suddenly coming to the end of his life. It was my good fortune to be with family and help care for him as he died.
I mention this most personal of circumstances precisely because it’s such an ordinary experience. We all know the sorrow of loss. Suffering is part of what makes us human and something we have in common. As Buddhism teaches, suffering can be a profound source of compassion—for ourself and others. How good it would be, I tell myself as I write this, to use our moments of sorrow for that purpose.
Only now do I begin to find the time and energy to turn my attention to work.
—C.M.
10 JUNE—What follows is a series of alerts on settler and I.O.F. violence that arrived by text beginning in the second week of May. In photographs and videos, they document incidents near the villages of Kisan and al–Mughayyir, where I have contacts and friends. These events merit witness. The Palestinians who suffer as settlers and soldiers lay violent siege to the West Bank deserve the world’s attention.
The West Bank is being strangled by an ever-tightening noose. Zionist settlers rapidly steal more land while encircling rural communities and villages with outposts and new settlements. They burn wheat fields, cut down olive groves, and destroy greenhouses. They kill or steal herds of sheep and goats and drive Palestinian shepherds off their ancestral grazing land. Any remote families or family groups are attacked and forced from their homes. All of this under the protective watch of I.O.F. soldiers and in violation of international law.
In the meantime, the I.O.F. accelerates home demolitions and has erected metal gates and barriers at the entrances of every single village, town, and city—without exception. Palestinian communities are frequently and randomly locked down, often for days. People are unable to travel to work, school, or for medical care. No one can get in. No one can get out. The Zionist state has turned every Palestinian community into a small version of Gaza. Should there be any resistance—or should the Zionist entity claim there is a threat of resistance—any community can easily be reduced to rubble.
As my friend Kathem said when I first met him more than a year ago,
They are made to destroy. They are a destruction machine. They kill, they steal, they take everything. Everyone in the world wants peace and stability. They don’t. They want to kill and steal. They are a killing and stealing machine.
All of this is strategic. It’s the next logical step in the Zionist plan to realize Eretz Israel. There will likely be more yet to steal: certainly in Syria, where Israel has already taken additional land since Assad’s ouster. In Lebanon, Israel continues to increase its claim to territory during a ceasefire it routinely violates; parts of Egypt and Jordan may fall to the Zionist state as well.
Throughout Occupied Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank, we witness the final act of the Nakba.
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Kisan.
The village of Kisan is located within the Governorate of Bethlehem, roughly 11 km southeast of the city of Bethlehem, 19 km north and east of Hebron. My contact in Kisan has been documenting settler violence for many years, risking his life and freedom to do so. He sent the following four updates.
Text, 10 May: “This morning, next to the house of citizen Nassar Rashaida.”
The following video shows four illegal Zionist settlers, almost certainly members of the “Hilltop Youth.” This is a violent Hardal settler group comprised of young men and teenaged boys. The Hilltop Youth establish illegal outposts from which they attack and terrorize Palestinian families and communities. Intimidation is part of their strategy, as depicted in the video below. Here they are trespassing on Palestinian land and watching and threatening a family with their presence.
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Text, 13 May: “This morning, the occupation bulldozers demolished a one-story house owned by Hussein Yousef Al-Abayat, under the pretext of unlicensed construction in Area C.”
Home demolition is accelerating across the West Bank. The justification for this cruel practice is as cynical as it is mendacious. Zionist Israel has no legal authority over land use in Occupied Palestine. Demolition is outright theft.
The following photographs show the equipment typically used for demolitions. Israel can destroy a multi-story building using this same machinery. I.O.F. soldiers, as seen below, accompany all demolitions.
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Text, 24 May: “Settlers attack Kisan residents in the wilderness under army protection.”
The following video shows a large number of Zionist settlers attacking the Kisan Bedouin grouping of Deir Alla. This remote herding community is composed of multiple homes and outbuildings, including pens and sheds for animals. The camera swings to the left, and on the hill behind the videographer I.O.F. soldiers stand next to an armored vehicle watching the attack unfold. Settler dogs can be seen along with several settlers. Cars were damaged, and numerous animals, primarily kid goats, were killed in the attack.
Text, 24 May: “They are throwing stones.”
In this video the armored vehicle is now down in the valley, where I.O.F. soldiers are protecting the settlers. You can see settlers throwing stones as they move back up the hill. Two Palestinians men were arrested the next day. The sadism of the Zionist state is boundless.
Text, 24 May: “The baby goats were killed with stones.”
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Text, 31 May: “The settler gangs are still harassing the residents of the Deir Alla area, including the residents of Kisan, by releasing their livestock and bringing them close to their homes. They are continuing their efforts, days after a bloody attack targeting the citizens’ property, including livestock and homes, to force them to leave their homes and displace them.”
In the following two photographs, a settler, likely with the Hilltop Youth, can be seen grazing a flock on Palestinian lands near the homes that had been attacked only days earlier. This is part of the process of taking over the land. In the next phase, Palestinian shepherds will be violently attacked and prevented from grazing on their own land. What is left of their sheep and goat herds will be stolen or killed. The houses will be forcibly entered and torn apart, or burned down, and the families driven off of their land.
This ends the update from Kisan.
al–Mughayyir.
The village of al–Mughayyir is located in the Ramallah Governorate, 37 km north and east of Ramallah. All entrances to the community are frequently and randomly closed by the I.O.F. leaving its 4,000 inhabitant isolated and stranded, vulnerable to attack and with no means to get help from other communities. The following updates arrived by WhatsApp from three contacts, all of whom are residents of the village.
Text, 24 May: “A new settlement outpost east of al–Mughayyir village, only 500 meters away from the last house in the village.”
The following video documents the location and construction of an illegal outpost, the initial step in the establishment of a new settlement. Al–Mughayyir is now completely surrounded—watched, harassed, and terrorized from all sides. Nearly all of the agricultural land belonging to the village—42,000 dunams, the equivalent of 10,380 acres—was stolen in the months following 7 October 2023. Wheat fields, almond trees, and olive groves were recently set on fire or otherwise destroyed.
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Text, 28 May: “It’s Tuesday morning in al–Mughayyir village. The house of my neighbor, Sameeh Mohammad Naasan, is being demolished by Israeli forces under the pretext that it is located in Area C.”
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Text, 28 May: “The whole area is filled with outposts. The entire village is 42,000 dunams of land. They left only 3,000 dunams for villagers. The settlers took the rest under the protection of the I.O.F. The fire hasn’t stopped yet. The outposts are everywhere.”
The following video pans across the wheat fields and olive groves that were burned by settlers over the course of two days in the last week of May. As the camera moves uphill to the right, it focuses briefly on the new illegal outpost in the distance.
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Text, 6 June: “More than 70 olive trees belonging to citizen Wadih Khaled from Turmus Ayya were cut down last night in the Marj Sa`i’ plain located between al-Mughayyir and Abu Falah, as well as 30 trees belonging to citizen Yasser Jawdat from Abu Falah, by settler groups in the settlement outpost established in Area B.”
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In a text exchange this past Saturday, 7 June, a friend from al–Mughayyir reported that he has lost all access to his land and has therefor been unable to harvest grapes, almonds, olives, and other crops that his family depends upon for food and income. My friend, a fruit vendor in Ramallah, has no work. The family is running out of olive oil, a staple in the Palestinian diet.
The starvation siege of the West Bank has begun. It will not be reported anywhere in the Western press.
“We are in prison,” the same friend texted.
And then he asked, “What do we do with Israel?”
This ends the report from al–Mughayyir.
Footnote: The kindergarten playground project in al–Mughayyir, which many of you generously supported, is nearing completion. Artificial grass will soon be installed. All that remains after that is the purchase and installation of new play equipment. A full report will be forthcoming.
Horrific, cruel, and unjust. I find it hard to read and I'm sure you find it hard to write; I don't know how the Palestinians manage to live through it.
"The sadism of the Zionist state is boundless."
So true. So heart-achingly sad.
P.P.S. My sympathy on the death of your father. There is something proper, something right with the world, almost satisfying, when an 87 year old man passes away peacefully surrounded by loved ones.
First of all, I'm glad you were able to return to the States to be with your dad and other loved ones before he departed his earth plane existence.
May your dad rest in peace.
As always, Cara top notch journalism, which on the Palestinian subject must be hard for you to do, especially knowing some of them
We were warned about the Zionist back in the 1930"s but few people paid attention and now the death, destruction, misery and suffering of them by the Zionist sadists and murderers of the " devils chosen country," Israehell ( no typo).
Thanks for the photos and film clips. So sad!