On the Agenda

Last night (Monday), the New Israel Fund awarded the inaugural Truth to Power Prize to B'Tselem field researcher in the South Hebron Hills, Nasser Nawaj’ah. The award is given to honor the memory of the late William S. Goldman, a professor of history and an NIF board member. It is awarded to “individuals that stand up for truth and give voice to the silenced, often at great personal, organizational, financial or reputational risk."...

On Monday, 10 July 2023, at around 1:30 A.M., dozens of masked soldiers, with dogs, entered homes belonging to the extended ’Ajlouni family in the neighborhood of Khallat al-Qaba in southern Hebron. They threatened, using their weapons, 26 members of the family who were home at the time, and confined them to one of the apartments. The soldiers handcuffed three family members, one of them a 17-year-old boy, blindfolded them and took them to another apartment. They then separated the remaining men from the women and children, who were kept in the living room and searched them in a separate room...

On Friday, 21 July 2023, Israeli soldiers arrived in the Palestinian town of Sabastiya, parked their military jeeps and started walking toward the center of the town. Fawzi Makhalfeh (18) and his friend Muhammad Mukheimar (19) were driving down a road that leads to the street where the soldiers were walking at the same time. Makhalfeh, who was driving, turned onto the street where the soldiers were walking. One of the soldiers shouted “stop” to them, and immediately after, the soldiers fired live fire rounds at the car.

On Wednesday, 21 June 2023, at approximately 1:30 P.M., hundreds of settlers – some of them masked and armed with guns, pistols, metal rods, and Molotov cocktails – entered the village of Turmusaya in the district of Ramallah escorted by soldiers. The settlers entered the northeastern neighborhood of the village, attacked 30 houses and set fire to 10 of them, nine of which completely burned....

During the past year, Israel attacked the Gaza Strip twice, in August 2022 and May 2023, killing 63 Palestinians, at least 27 of whom did not take part in the hostilities, including 13 minors. Thousands lost their homes. Israeli Decision-makers are well aware of these consequences, and yet, the policy is fully backed by government, military and legal officials who offer incorrect legal opinions in order to legitimize it. . In testimonies given to B’Tselem field researchers, residents of the Gaza Strip describe the trauma and hardships caused by the bombing of their homes 

On Saturday, 24 June 2023, at around 1:00 P.M., dozens of masked Jewish settlers – some armed with clubs, others with firearms – entered the village of Um Safa, in Ramallah District. Escorted by Israeli soldiers, the settlers entered the village from three directions: Near the eastern entrance, they attacked the home of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-‘Abayat while his wife, along with her one-year-old toddler and a 20-day-old infant, were inside. The settlers collected tires from the house’s yard, piled them at the entrance, and set them on fire. 

Terrorized by settlers, a fourth Palestinian community is forced to leave in the past three months: After repeated attacks and threats by settlers and having been left with no other choice, the Bedouin community of al-Qabun, located east of Ramallah, abandoned its homes this week. Most members of the community, numbering 12 families numbering a total of 86 people, including 26 minors, have left already, and the rest are currently packing up and getting ready to follow suit. The community has lived at the current site since 1996. In February of this year, settlers took up residence near it. Al-Qabun residents say that recently, settlers have been coming into the community, walking around their homes, arriving on horseback and in tractors late at night to provoke and intimidate the families. The settlers have also taken over the community’s farm fields and prevented them from grazing their flock on their land.

On 30 June 2023, scores of settlers, some armed, attacked houses in the neighborhood of Wadi al-Hasin with stones. One of them fired several shots at a house. When Palestinians threw stones at the settlers in an attempt to drive them away, soldiers chased them and threw stun grenades at them. Soldiers entered one of the attacked homes while the family was in the middle of an engagement party, and detained the guests for about twenty minutes.

On 3 July 2023, some young Palestinian men gathered around the City Inn intersection in al-Birah to protest a military incursion into Jenin Refugee Camp. About 20 young men advanced toward the road leading to the checkpoint, chanting slogans, setting tires on fire and throwing stones from a distance at soldiers at the checkpoint. On the road south of the checkpoint, there was a military jeep with several other soldiers standing next to it. More young men, including Muhammad Hasanein (21), arrived in the area and watched the clashes from a distance.

The crowded Balata Refugee Camp in the city of Nablus is home to 35,000 people. UNRWA reports that this year, Israeli forces have raided the camp at least 14 times. In each of these raids, clashes have broken out between young men from the camp and the Israeli forces. In 2023, Israel has killed nine Palestinians in incursions into Balata R.C. Four of them were armed. Six residents were killed during three different incidents in May and June alone, two of them armed. The sequence of events in these three incidents is presented below:

The inquiry’s conclusions, and the fact that the military chose to release them without being asked to do so, demonstrate the military’s brazen disregard for Palestinians’ lives. The sequence of events emerging from the inquiry reveals there was no factual basis to support the decision to fire and that it was made entirely on a single soldier’s unfounded suspicions and subjective feelings. This is not just the result of “incorrect decision-making” but an accurate reflection of Israel’s open-fire policy in the West Bank, which allows soldiers to wantonly fire inside a civilian community, with utter indifference to the consequences. It should come as no surprise, then, that the incident was whitewashed and that no one involved, from the soldier who killed Muhammad Tamimi to senior officers who sign off on policy, has been punished, save for a symbolic reprimand issued to the officer who fired in the air “against regulations.”

The military set up roadblocks at the two main entrances to the village: the west entrance leading to Ramallah and the east entrance leading to the Jordan Valley.During the closure, soldiers entered dozens of houses at night, waking up and terrorizing all the residents, including children and babies. Over fifty boys and men ranging in age from 15 to 30 were arrested. Most were released a short while later...