The walk to the graveyard where Ayşenur is buried made me feel as though I was back in rural Palestine: the olive groves on either side of the dirt road, the farmers harvesting olives using the same methods I’d seen them use in the West Bank as well as simply the serene beauty of the landscape.
It felt strange visiting her grave when exactly two months ago today I met her for the first time in Ramallah four days before she was brutally murdered by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF), and I almost feel a sense of guilt for being able to visit her hometown in Didim, Turkey while she is unable to. Why was it her who was shot and not me?
In the wake of her death, numerous well-meaning people have said to me “any one of you could have been killed like Ayşenur was” but I think this misses the point: many Palestinians ARE shot like Ayşenur was, many more are bombed and burnt to death and unfortunately, as Ayşenur herself would say, their deaths receive a fraction of a fraction of the attention her death received.
The grave itself was incredibly peaceful. I was the only one in the graveyard apart from the birds above me, whose chirping added to the serenity of the scene. The peacefulness brought me comfort as it stood in stark contrast to the chaos of the days following her death. Those who attended the protest with her were speaking to journalists non stop for days while the rest of us were doing our best to support them as much as we could and her funeral in Palestine was plagued by diplomatic issues between the Turkish and American governments over where she would be buried. We never got a chance to mourn her in the midst of all this.
Of course, Ayşenur is but one out of hundreds of thousands who have been killed by the IOF in the last year alone. Now, two months after her murder, settler attacks and deportations of foreign activists have ramped up in the West Bank, the north of Gaza has been under siege and has been subjected to massacre after massacre, many parts of Lebanon have been bombed (along with Syria, Iraq and Yemen) and the IOF shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
It can be easy to feel hopeless and helpless in the face of such monstrosities, but if the Palestinians on the ground haven’t given up the popular struggle for an end to the occupation then we shouldn’t either. I think Ayşenur would have said the same thing.
Nur Shams – Tulkarm By Diana Khwaelid 1 November 2024
Has Israel Succeeded in Implementing the Voluntary Displacement Policy in West Bank Camps?
Israeli forces launched another incursion into the Nur Shams camp in the city of Tulkarm. A military operation by the Israeli occupying forces in the camp led to the destruction of infrastructure that had already been damaged during previous incursions.
Almost a month after the last assault on the camp, the occupation returned to launch another military operation, further destroying infrastructure and the camp’s main entrance. Dozens of shops were damaged again after recent rebuilding efforts following the last assault.
The camp’s main electricity distribution transformer was targeted, sewage pipes were destroyed, and internet lines were cut during the military operation. The Israeli incursion into the camp and city lasted 13 continuous hours.
The headquarters of the UNRWA office and camp services were also targeted and destroyed just three days after the decision to ban UNRWA offices in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank was issued.
One of the martyrs was 30-year-old Hossam al-Mallah, a resident of Tulkarm camp. An Israeli special force infiltrated Tulkarm, specifically targeting his workplace in the camp and fatally shooting him on the evening of Wednesday, October 31. On the same night, Israeli forces re-entered Tulkarm around 3:00 AM, with helicopters stationed in Nur Shams camp.
Three Martyrs in Nur Shams Camp The Nur Shams refugee camp has continued to lose young lives, with the occupation repeatedly targeting Palestinian youth in camps across the northern West Bank. The martyrs include Mutassim Aisha, aged 32; Abdulaziz Abu Samin, aged 22; and Ahmad Fahmawi, aged 18. The Israeli forces killed them without warning.
Medical and ambulance crews were also prevented from entering the camp to transport wounded Palestinians, some of whom died due to the occupation’s obstruction of medical aid. Displacement of Camp Residents Abu Ahmed, a 61-year-old resident of Nur Shams camp, reported that the entrance to his house was destroyed for the sixth time, and his shops were destroyed for the third time during the recent incursion. He said the occupation aims to displace residents of Palestinian camps in the West Bank, especially in Nur Shams camp. However, he added, “The policy of destruction in the camp will not succeed in displacing us. Where are we supposed to go? There’s nowhere else.”
A state of sadness has gripped the city of Tulkarm, especially in the camps, during the funeral of four martyrs who were killed by the occupation in less than 24 hours. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the West Bank has witnessed 766 martyrs since the beginning of the year, with 177 from the city of Tulkarm.
October 26, 2024 | Tulkarem-West Bank | Diana Khwaelid
What does it mean to bring an entire army battalion with huge military vehicles storming into a neighborhood, to besiege a whole apartment building, in search of a single Palestinian? This is a report of resilience and defiance in the face of the Israeli occupation.
On October 26 at 3:20 a.m. the Israeli occupation forces stormed the city of Tulkarem, north of the Western apartment. This time, forces were stationed in Al-Salam Lane, a neighborhood located between the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps.
Israeli special forces known as Al-Yamamah were accompanied by three wheeled bulldozers and Israeli heavy military vehicles of type D9, D10. These forces, accompanied by soldiers, besieged a residential building in the Al-Salam neighborhood for 10 hours continuously, after receiving security intelligence about the presence of a Palestinian inside one of the residential apartments in building. Three Palestinian families, most of them women and children, were living inside the building.
The Palestinians who were living inside the building felt a state of fear and panic, especially the women and children. One of the residents of the building said, “My children are still under the influence of fear and shock even after the withdrawal of the army and the end of the Israeli military operation.”
The Israeli occupation operation focused on besieging the building, bulldozing the main entrance to the building, and evacuating the Palestinian families who were living inside, so that the building could be surrounded from all sides, with the addition of aircraft from above.
The five-floor building was subjected to partial and total destruction throughout, and all this to kill the 29-year-old Palestinian Islam Odeh, from the Tulkarem camp. The Israeli occupation forces proceeded with a march onto the floor where he was located, and launched Energa-type missiles to murder him, but he kept fighting until the last moment and never gave up; he succumbed to an Israeli bullet in the end. That final bullet hit Islam Odeh directly in the head, and he fell as a martyr.
According to the Palestinian Civil Administration, the Israeli occupation forces killed the young Palestinian Islam, and have retained his body.
Palestinian medical and Civil Defense crews rushed to the site of the building immediately after the end of the military operation and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, in order to secure the building and dispose of any remnants of explosives and Israeli military equipment.
This operation imposed heavy material losses for the owner of the building, and heavy losses as well for the owners of cars destroyed by the occupation while at the entrance to the building, cars which belonged to the residents of the building.
There was a difficult psychological impact on the family of the Palestinian martyr Islam Odeh after receiving the news of their son’s elevation.
There was also a profound psychological impact on the family of the martyr, Islam Odeh, after learning of their son’s death.
According to the Shirin Abu Aqla Observatory in Tulkarm alone, the number of martyrs since the beginning of 2024 has reached 173 so far.
International volunteers have continued to return to Beita following the murder of Ayşenur, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, despite the Israeli army violently suppressing the peaceful demonstrations.
On Friday 25, the day began with tense confrontations from Israeli forces, which forced Palestinians and volunteers to evade soldiers and tear gas. After the army retreated, however, a group of international volunteers were finally able to gather at Ayşenur’s memorial. This moment was deeply emotional, honoring a young life stolen abruptly amid a broader struggle for freedom in Beita and all of Palestine.
Since 2021, this village in the West Bank has faced sustained aggressions, resulting in the Israeli forces killing 17 Palestinians. Known for its long-standing history of resistance against illegal Israeli settlement expansions, Beita has become a focal point of suppression. Residents of Beita continue to protest the seizure of land on nearby Jabal Sabih, a hill where settlers have established an illegal outpost (which recently became a settlement), strategically overlooking the village. Life on this land is integral to the community of Beita, and residents now protest at the hill weekly.
For many in Beita, the losses of recent years are a painful reminder of the enduring costs of occupation. The Israeli government has largely dismissed these protests as a “security” issue, but locals see them as a necessary stand against forced displacement. For Palestinians, the establishment of new settlements not only usurps their land but also deepens the sense of injustice and alienation felt under military occupation.
In this solemn space, surrounded by memories of Ayşanur and others lost in the struggle, volunteers and others sought comfort in the belief that she, like those before her, is at peace – and as one volunteer put it, “on her way to Jannah.”
This report was generated by the Commission Against the Wall and Settlements, and was translated from Arabic to English for ISM. That translation is reproduced here with only minor formatting alterations.
Agricultural Outposts: A Gateway towards Forced Displacement
It is not possible to create a functional separation between the case of establishing colonial outposts, which witnessed a rise in their creation process after 2015, and the case of forced displacement taking place these days, which reached its peak shortly after the aggression began on October 7th, 2023. The state of emergency and the declaration of war served as a cover for the behavior of colonizers’ militias whose original aim was to create this type of displacement. This is a form of a functional exchange of roles between the official institutes affiliated with the occupation and these militias.
Data from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) point to the existence of 96 active colonial outposts taking on the forms of pastoral and agricultural outposts out of a total of 196 diverse colonial outposts (updated data/Commission). These outposts prevent Palestinian citizens from “using/accessing” more than 410,000 dunums of privately owned citizens’ lands in various areas in the West Bank, mostly concentrated in the eastern slopes and the Jordan Valley. This is done without official military orders and without declared procedures, merely under the control of terrorism, domination, and official military protection.
The attached map shows how the positioning of the outposts, that were built purposefully alongside Bedouin communities, led to the forced displacement of these communities because of the behavior of armed extremist colonizers and their aggressive implementation of these evacuation plans. This was achieved by depriving these communities from grazing areas and water resources, in addition to instilling fear in the hearts of the elderly, women, and children, compelling them to leave. Data from the commission, alongside other human rights organizations, indicates that more than 27 Bedouin communities of various sizes were forcibly displaced in the year 2023 due to the terrorism emanating from these outposts.
This approach (colonial outposts vs forced displacement) is based on one of the main plans of the settler colonial project’s trajectories following the occupation in 1967, which was revealed in the same year and was attributed to the acting Prime Minister and Minister in the third occupation government, Yigal Allon. He gave a proposition to empty the eastern slopes of the West Bank, annex the city of Jerusalem, and gain control over Palestinian natural resources (see the side map).
By following the occupation’s colonial behavior through the past decades, one can come to the conclusion that the occupation state did not deter, not for one minute, from implementing this particular plan, in addition to several other prominent plans, notably, Matityahu Drobles Plan of 1978 (former head of the colonial division). Drobles proposed annexing the eastern slopes, and reinforcing colonial blocs, which has remained steadfast and is being rapidly implemented. The implementation process began by isolating the Jordan Valley and evacuating it, and continued by instilling colonizers in pastoral and agricultural outposts, and culminated in the imposition of terrorism to accomplish the displacement process.
The CWRC data point out that 71% of these outposts were created after 2015. The Commission monitors that 78% of these outposts were established in the eastern part of the West Bank, starting from the northern part of the Jordan Valley, passing through the eastern part of Ramallah and Jerusalem, and ending in the southern part of the Hebron Governorate in the south, or in areas overlooking these regions, such as the eastern part of Nablus Governorate, forming a corridor in the operational sense of control.
Looking at the issue from the outside, it seems that these invented colonial stages, and in every stage, are separate from each other completely. This supports the occupation’s claim that there are security reasons and requirements for all these procedures. However, in truth, while reviewing this project in its cumulative dimension, and in a way that leaves no room for doubt, that there is a strong bond between these stages that goes way back to ancient origins and ideologies that were adopted since the beginning of the occupation. This connection does not relinquish control as a concept and does not loosen its grip on the land and its people as a practical on-the-ground measure.
Even though the settler-colonial project on Palestine has a long, ancient, and continuous history, on the other hand, the Palestinian legal and popular national struggle is no less rooted, authentic, and varied. It emanates from the concept of the inherent right and the struggle protected by all laws of the land and sky, preserved by the Palestinian people with unwavering determination.
Colonial Terrorism and Forced Displacement
In this part of the report, we document the forced displacement processes caused by the coercive and hostile environmental measures imposed by the occupation state’s direct measures and through the terrorism of colonizers’ militias imposed on Palestinian citizens in these areas.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, since the beginning of 2023, especially after the aggression on our people started after the 7th of October, monitored an escalation of the assaults and threats of armed colonizers, in what can be described as an audacious exploitation of the aggression waged on the Gaza Strip, taking advantage of the fact the media focus is on Gaza, and its absence from the West Bank and Jerusalem to some extent. Most importantly, there is an exploitation of the emergency and war laws imposed by the occupying state, which protect the criminals among the colonizers from accountability and punishment, particularly in the issues of forced displacement and the imposition of a coercive and hostile environment.
Even though all international laws and regulations prohibit and criminalize forced displacement, as stated in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 49, which declares: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Similarly, Article 53, “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.” And Article 147, which declares, “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.” (Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, 1949).
Judicial precedents from the International Criminal Court and other international criminal tribunals affirm that forced displacement is not limited to direct physical displacement but also encompasses actions and threats involving the use of force and coercion. It also includes creating a hostile environment, such as detention, violence, demolition, and other measures that forcibly drive individuals to leave their place of residence or to be displaced.
The Israeli occupation authorities, in the process of forced displacement of Palestinian Bedouin communities, focus on three main areas: the Palestinian Jordan Valley, the eastern region of Ramallah, and the southern part of Hebron. This is evident in the data on the positioning of the displaced communities. During the period covered by the report, the Israeli occupation procedures led to the forced displacement of 28 Bedouin communities.
* For this column, “Partial” indicates cases where a portion of the community in question was displaced, rather than the entire community; “Pre-Oct-7” indicates communities that were deported before the aggression on October 7, 2023.
The Most Prominent Models of Forced Displacement in 2023
Case 1. The forced displacement of Wadi As-Seeq/East of Ramallah/Ramallah Governorate:
Following the aggression against the Palestinian people on the 7th of October, armed colonizers began a series of threats against the inhabitants of the community and the crews of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, which had been stationed there for more than 45 days. At the time, 30 families, comprising approximately 180 individuals, including 40 minors, were residing in the area. In the evening hours of October 10, 2023, the families of the community began to evacuate the location in response to the colonizers’ threats.
The community’s residents live in an area of approximately one square kilometer.
The community includes a school built by the residents, accommodating 120 students.
The inhabitants have been living in the location since the 1970s, relying on sheep farming for their livelihood.
Since 1996, the residents have been consistently receiving notifications of the demolition of structures, tents, and barracks, under the pretext of their presence in a military zone, despite evidence that they are outside the designated firing range for training.
Case 2. The Forced Displacement of Khirbet Zanota, Adh Dhahiriya/ Hebron Governorate
Directly following Israeli colonizers made a series of attacks and violent threats, including threats of murder if they did not leave, 36 Palestinian families, comprising a total of 400 individuals, half of whom were children, were displaced from Khirbet Zanota in the southern part of the West Bank. On October 28, 2023, the residents dismantled around 50 tent and barrack structures, and evacuated the area along with their livestock, totaling 4,700 sheep.
The land area of Khirbet Zanota in the southern Hebron Governorate is 12,000 dunams.
All classified as Area C. It is surrounded on the west by the detour colonial road, on the east by the colonial industrial area, and on the south by the Annexation and Expansion Wall. On the north, the historical ruins of the village are surrounded by the colonies of “Metar, Tima, and Shim’a.”
The displacement of these families grants the occupation control over more than 20,000 dunams of land surrounding the village.
The school accommodates 43 students, including 10 children in kindergarten, along with several teachers. The school, which was targeted for demolition and reconstructed with “zinc” and brick panels, comprises 6 rooms, facilities, and a health unit.
There is a provisional Israeli court decision protecting the colony’s buildings from demolition, issued in 2016.
The colony has received demolition notifications, which have not been implemented, particularly targeting the Municipal Council building and the health clinic.
Case 3. The Forced Displacement of Ein Ar-Rashash/Thahr Al-Jabal/East of Ramallah:
Fifteen families, totaling 95 people, including 21 minors, used to reside in the area. On October 9, 2023, a group of colonizers blocked the road leading to the community’s residence. It is important to point out that the Israeli occupation army has blocked the road multiple times and the community managed to open it again. The colonizers also blocked the water tank from reaching the area forcing the community to relocate 1500 sheep to the village of Duma. By October 13, 2023, all women and children had relocated to the village of Duma, and on October 16, 2023, all the men joined them in the area next to the Duman village.
Case 4. The Forced Displacement of Khirbat Jab’it/North of Ramallah
Eight families, totaling 25 people, including 10 minors, resided in the area. On October 13, 2023, the community left the area due to colonizers’ threats. They left most of their possessions behind, fearing to retrieve them because of the ongoing threats and because the colonizers blocked the road leading to the area.