On the Agenda

In December, soldiers and police killed 62 Palestinians in the West Bank, 17 of them minors. Of the persons killed, 36 were endangering no one: 11 were shot while throwing stones or burning tires during clashes, 18 were shot while standing by clashes without taking part (9 of them by an aerial bombing), and 6 were killed in other circumstances. Regarding 1 other Palestinian, B’Tselem could not determine whether he was killed by soldiers or settlers. B’Tselem’s findings regarding several incidents in which Palestinians were killed in Nov. 2023...

Since the war in Gaza broke out, Israel has suspended entry permits into its territory, as well as into parts of the West Bank cut off by the Separation Barrier. The Hajar family from the village of Shweikah in Tulkarm District owns an aluminum factory in the village of Barta’ah a-Sharqiyah. This village and others are trapped in an enclave created by the Separation Barrier, cut off from the rest of the West Bank. The family has been unable to access the factory due to the sweeping suspension of permits...

On Tuesday, 5 December 2023, around 5:30 A.M., more than 20 soldiers entered Qalandia Refugee Camp in northeastern Jerusalem. Some of them broke into the building of the extended Manasrah family, which is home to five families totaling some 40 people, about half of them minors. The soldiers blew up the doors to all the apartments, without asking the inhabitants to open them or giving them prior warning...

On Thursday, 28 December 2023, at around 1:00 A.M., dozens of soldiers and Border Police officers entered the city of Ramallah. According to the media, the goal of the raid was to seize funds Israel alleges were meant for Hamas and Islamic Jihad...

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has stepped up its efforts to drive dozens of Palestinian shepherding communities in the northern Jordan Valley out of their homes and lands. Through cooperation and collaboration among the military, police, settlers and the Jordan Valley Regional Council, Israel has reduced grazing areas available to Palestinians, blocked regular water supply and took measures to isolate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank...

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has extremely tightened the restrictions, using its network of checkpoints to tighten supervision, setting up dozens of new checkpoints, blocking access from dozens of villages to main roads, and revoking all permits for Palestinians to enter Israel for work or other reasons. Click to view map and a description of the movement restrictions in Nablus and Ramallah...

On Tuesday, 30 January 2024, at 5:30 A.M., security cameras at Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital captured 12 soldiers, Special Police Unit officers and Shin Bet agents entering the hospital disguised as medical staff, women and patients. They went up to the third floor and one of them, in a white doctor’s coat, rang the bell of the rehabilitation department...

On 4 February 2024, around 7:00 A.M., a military force entered the al-Jamasin neighborhood of Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus District. The soldiers entered a building and went up to the third floor, where Amani and Jamal Hashash live with their five children. Jamal was at work in the Nablus Municipality and Amani was home with four of their children. When she realized soldiers were in the building, she sat the three older children down on her bed and sat next to them holding Ibrahim, 3, who was still asleep, in her arms...

On Thursday, 23 November 2023, around 1:00 P.M., Khader ‘Alwan, 46, was shot and killed near Route 60 in the Ramallah area. The IDF Spokesperson said soldiers “identified the suspect, who was carrying a large rock and approaching the road in order to throw it. Fearing for the safety of passengers on the road, the soldiers fired and neutralized him.” The findings of B’Tselem’s investigation indicate otherwise...

In Nov. 2023, Israel started work on a buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip. The media reported it will be about 1 km wide and run along the border, with military posts, paved roads and surveillance devices. Israel is demolishing almost everything in the designated area, which will be off limits to Palestinians – even those who lived or worked fields there before. The need to defend southern Israeli communities cannot justify this massive demolition, which is prohibited under international law, and the creation of a “security zone”.

The annual olive harvest in the West Bank is a key element of the Palestinian economy and a crucial source of income for tens of thousands of families. The World Bank and the Palestine Trade Center estimate that in good years, it injects almost 200 million dollars into the Palestinian economy. However, every year, Israel extensively restricts Palestinians’ ability to carry out the harvest, using official and unofficial means. In 2023, while the war in the Gaza Strip was underway, these restrictions reached new heights, leaving about 50% of Palestinian farmers unable to harvest their trees, according to estimates of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union...

From the start of the war in Gaza Strip to the end of 2023, Israel arrested about 5,500 Palestinians, including 184 women, some of them Palestinian citizens of Israel. B’Tselem collected testimonies from three women who were arrested in the Hebron area on 26 October 2023. All three were released in late November along with other female detainees and prisoners, as part of a deal with Hamas, which released women and minors abducted on 7 October 2023. The testimonies paint a picture of extreme violence against these women , from the moment soldiers barged into their homes and arrested them to the day they were released....