On the Agenda

Two bills that recently passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset are part of a calculated assault by the government on Israeli civil society. The aim is clear: eliminate human rights groups, including B'Tselem, silence government critics and stop us from fulfilling our mission to defend human rights. The “ICC law” criminalizes our work by making human rights defense a punishable offense, while the “NGO taxation law” is designed to drain our financial resources...

It is with deep sorrow and pain that we announce the passing of our friend and colleague Iyad 'Ali Muhammad Hadad, 61, who passed away last night after battling a serious illness.

Iyad Hadad worked as B’Tselem’s field researcher in the Ramallah area for 25 years, and his dedication to human rights began years earlier. He will always be an inseparable part of B’Tselem and of the struggle to defend human rights.

For us, Iyad embodied professional integrity, a commitment to seeking the truth, and an unwavering, principled fight to uphold justice and morality.

His unique contribution, over decades, to the struggle for human rights will remain with us.

May his memory be blessed

On Thursday, 19 December 2024, around 10:00 A.M., two vehicles with Palestinian license plates drove into the market street, a central thoroughfare in Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus. One was painted dark, with a siren and features of an ambulance, and the other was a white minibus. Many residents were out on the street shopping, and five or six armed Balata Brigade operatives were also present. One of the operatives signalled the minibus driver to stop, and the person next to the driver opened the door and started shooting indiscriminately in the general direction of the operatives. Immediately afterwards, soldiers emerged from both vehicles and opened fire. They injured at least six people, including two of the armed operatives and an elderly resident, Halimah Abu Leil, 80, who was also hit by the initial shooting and died of her wounds soon after.

Trump’s announcement this morning constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing through uprooting and forcibly transferring some 2 million people. It is Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap for a second Nakba of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The idea is deranged and abhorrent. Regardless of its feasibility, the mere presentation of such a plan is an indelible moral stain on all involved. Its implementation would constitute a grave violation of international law...

On Tuesday, 10 September 2024, around 12:30 P.M., Israeli special forces accompanied by a surveillance drone entered Tulkarm Refugee Camp. At least some of them arrived in civilian vehicles with Palestinian license plates. About an hour and a half later, additional military, Border Police, and Shin Bet (ISA) forces entered the camp, equipped with heavy engineering vehicles intended to destroy the streets.

On Wednesday, 25 September 2024, at around 5:00 P.M., an Israeli military force including undercover operatives from the Duvdevan Unit entered the village of ‘Anzah, south of Jenin, in a car with Palestinian license plates. The forces surrounded the home of 38-year-old Muhammad Barahmeh, a released prisoner, and arrested him. During the operation, some youths from the village threw stones at the forces from a great distance. The soldiers fired at them. No one among the forces or the youths was injured.

Since the war in Gaza began, the Israeli regime has removed all restraints on its violence towards Palestinians in the entire area it controls. The escalation in the severity and scope of violence was visible during the olive harvest, too: B’Tselem’s field researchers documented dozens of cases throughout the West Bank in which harvesters were attacked and driven off their land at gunpoint by soldiers and settlers. Harvesters were ousted not only from lands next to settlements, but also from plots in Area B, near Palestinian villages and even inside them, sometimes right at their doorstep. Settlers, some of them masked, hit harvesters with clubs, iron bars and stones, and in some cases threatened to kill them. In many cases, soldiers who were present – some of whom the residents identified as settlers from the area – either ignored the attacks and the attempts to force the farmers out or actively joined in by shooting or threatening to shoot them, and hurling tear gas canisters and stun grenades at them. In one documented incident, soldiers shot and killed 59-year-old Hanan Abu Salameh. In others, settlers or soldiers inflicted severe injuries on harvesters, including broken bones, burns and cerebral hemorrhage. Some of the harvesters were rushed to medical facilities for treatment and required prolonged hospitalization. 
 

B’Tselem welcomes the deal, but the catastrophe persists. We welcome the ceasefire and hostage release deal signed between Israel and Hamas. However, the catastrophe persists. Millions of people in Gaza remain destitute, starving, and homeless. A ceasefire is only the first step, and one that should have happened long ago. There is a real concern that Israel will resume fighting after the first phase of the deal is complete...

On 28 August 2024, Israel launched Operation Summer Camp, a series of multi-day raids by Israeli forces on refugee camps and cities in the northern West Bank. During these raids, dozens of people were arrested, and extensive damage was inflicted on civilian infrastructure. The military presence in the camps and cities led to clashes and exchanges of fire between the forces and Palestinian gunmen. Dozens of Palestinians were killed during the operation...

On Wednesday, 18 September 2024, around 3:00 A.M., hundreds of Israeli soldiers raided al-Fawar Refugee Camp southwest of Hebron, entering in dozens of military vehicles. The troops spread out in the camp, sealed off the entrances to the camp and forbade residents from leaving their homes. They stayed for more than 12 hours, during which time movement was forbidden, shops were shuttered and school was canceled. The troops seized the al-Khatib family’s home, removed the inhabitants and used it as a center for Shin Bet interrogations...

On Saturday, 21 September 2024, at around 3:30 A.M., several military and Border Police jeeps arrived on the main road between Kafr ‘Aqab and Qalandia Refugee Camp that leads to Ramallah. The jeeps drove against the flow of traffic, and stopped about 40 meters from the entrance to the camp.

On Thursday, 15 August 2024, at around 7:30 P.M., residents of the southeastern neighborhood of Jit noticed dozens of settlers, most of them masked and some armed, approaching the al-Bayada area of the village from the direction of the Gilad Farm outpost. The settlers set fire to vehicles and homes, and when village residents came out to protect their property and belongings, confrontations developed between them and the settlers, which included mutual stone-throwing. About 20 minutes into the attack, Rashid a-Sadeh, 22, left his house with a relative to join the residents defending their homes.