Jonathan Pollak arrested in Nabi Saleh. Credit: Oren Ziv/Activestills.
Jonathan Pollak, a long-time anti-Zionist activist from Jaffa, was slapped with an indictment for two counts of incitement to violence on Sunday (14 July, 2024). The indictment revolves around calls to join the Palestinian struggle against Israeli colonialism, made in a January 2020 article published in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and in a June 2021 speech during the Yeshayahu Leibowitz Award ceremony. In both cases, Pollak called on those within the settler society who oppose Israeli Apartheid and colonialism to join the Palestinian struggle for liberation and integrate in it as a minority, under Palestinian leadership, and “march in the footsteps of the children of the stones and Molotov cocktails.”
Pollak has been the target of persecution by Israeli right-wing groups such as Ad Kan and Im Tirzu for several years, and this indictment is also the direct result of a campaign by these organizations. In 2018 Ad Kan used an esoteric judicial procedure and filed a private criminal complaint against Pollak and two other activists. He refused to attend hearings or cooperate with the proceedings in any way, and was wanted by the authorities for over a year before being arrested. In 2019, after Ad Kan published a post asking the public for help locating Pollak, he was attacked with a knife by two men who called him an anarchist. The article subject to the current indictment was published the day Pollak was apprehended, and the investigation into it for incitement was opened on his release after Ad Kan’s case was kicked out, in order to sweeten the pill.
On receiving the indictment, Pollak said: ” The only exceptional thing about this indictment is that, this time, Israel filed it against one of its Jewish citizens. In practice, it is merely one in hundreds such politically motivated indictments filed against Palestinians, both those who hold Israeli citizenship and those living as subjects under military rule. In contrast, the innumerous Israeli citizens, journalists and politicians regularly and blatantly calling to starve babies, indiscriminately kill innocent civilians, commit war crimes and genocide, go completely unscathed. It would suffice to examine the list of prosecution witnesses to understand who truly stands behind the indictment and what its purpose is. It is unabashed political persecution in service of Israel’s extreme right, meant to silence any support for the Palestinian struggle for liberation, and is part of the attempt to stifle the Palestinian struggle itself.”
*Tulkarm – Nur Shams Refugee Camp*
June 9, 2024 By Diana Khwaelid*
At midnight on June 9, occupation forces stormed the city of Tulkarm and stationed themselves in the Nur Shams camp, northeast of Tulkarm. A military operation that lasted for more than 13 continuous hours ensued, during which the Israeli occupation forces vandalized and destroyed the camp on the orders of Israeli military officials.
According to the residents of the camp, “this incursion was the most difficult and dangerous of the Israeli military incursions,” despite the exposure of the residents of Nur Shams camp to dozens of previous incursions.
Dozens of Israeli military vehicles stormed the camp and the Manshiyeh neighborhood. D9 and 5 bulldozers sabotaged and destroyed the main road of the camp, Nablus Street. They also destroyed the camp’s infrastructure, including the water network and power lines.
Dozens of shops were damaged, including a pharmacy, restaurants, and private shops for cellular devices. Many Palestinian homes were destroyed as a result of the vandalism and destruction of the camp.
The Israeli occupation forces conducted the destruction accompanied by military vehicles, especially bulldozers, while Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were inside their homes. The occupation forces did not ask or care about those inside the houses or whether they were physically harmed.
Medical and Palestinian Civil Defence crews rushed to the camp immediately after the withdrawal of military vehicles at around 3 pm, following more than 13 hours of continuous destruction. The medical staff stated that they had not received any reports or dealt with any injuries inside the camp. It was like a miracle that the occupation entered and left without causing physical injuries.
Palestinians inside the camp said: “في المال ولا في العيال”, good it happened “to the money and not to the families,” meaning that at least the destruction was only to material things (homes, streets, and camps) and no life was taken.
After the Israeli Hebrew media published a special report on Tulkarm, especially the Nur Shams camp, Israeli news agencies, citing Israeli security sources, stated that the city of Tulkarm, particularly the refugee camps, must end. According to the statements of the Israeli army, “Tulkarm city is a city of terrorism.”
The people of the Nur Shams refugee camp refused to leave the camp. The majority decided to stay, no matter what happened. A Palestinian survivor whose house was destroyed said, “I will build a better house than the one destroyed by the occupation.”
The Israeli occupation forces continue to carry out incursions, destruction, murder, and arrests in the West Bank, especially in the city of Tulkarem.
Israeli forces arresting 14 year old Palestinian child.
Israeli Occupation forces arrested three Palestinians, including a 14 year old child, together with threeinternational (including a US citizen) and one Israeli human rights observers in at-Tuwani, Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills area.
This morning, armed Israeli settler shepherds invaded Palestinian land with their flocks, provoked the family that was working on their land and attempted to steal one of their donkeys. The Palestinians tried to prevent them from going on their land and were attacked by the settlers. They called the police to remove the settlers, but the army and police chose to arrest three Palestinians, one of whom is a 14 year old child, three international and one Israeli human rights observers. No settlers were detained. They have all been taken to an Israeli police station. As of 5.45 pm (Jerusalem time), the family has been released but the human rights observers remain under custody.
The family, including the child, was already detained for around 3 hours on their land a couple of weeks ago and they have suffered numerous attacks over the years from violent settlers and the army. A couple of weeks ago, settlers cut newly planted trees and destroyed the water connections.
Land theft and ethnic cleansing have spiralled since October 7 in Masafer Yatta, and in other areas of the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers who live in illegal settlements have been heavily armed and have escalated harassment and threats towards Palestinian communities, with the backing of the Israeli occupation forces. Umm al-Khair, one of the villages in Masafer Yatta, has lately come under almost daily attack from settlers and the army. On June 26, occupation forces demolished a dozen structures in Umm al-Khair displacing dozens of residents, including children. Since then, settlers have raided the village, shot live ammunition, erected a tent in the village and destroyed the water system, leaving the whole community of Umm al Khair without access to water.
On July 4, settlers carried out a pogrom in the village of Khalet a Dabaa. About 200 settlers reached the village at midnight, set agricultural land and trees on fire and attacked villagers, shot live ammunition and kidnapped a villager. An Italian activist from the NGO Mediterranea was also badly beaten. There are daily incidents in Masafer Yatta, with settlers coming on what remains of Palestinian land to herd in order to harass and push Palestinians further away from their land.
These are not isolated incidents. They are a part of a bigger plan of annexation of the West Bank/Area C. Between October 7 and July 1, over 1,050 attacks from settlers on Palestinians have been recorded by OCHA. At the beginning of March, Israeli authorities approved the construction of almost 3,500 illegal housing units in settlements around the West Bank. More recently, almost 5,295 new illegal housing units have been approved. This all comes amidst the biggest land seizure in the West Bank in over 30 years. Far-right Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to bring a million more settlers under his expansion plan.
In a quiet move, about a month ago, more control was moved from the Israeli army’s civil administration to the recently established governmental body “Settlement Administration”, led by Smotrich. Last Thursday, Orit Strock, Minister of Settlements and National Missions, was reported praising a master plan to build over 100 housing units in the South Hebron Hills area, saying this was “a miracle time” and “a sacred mission,” highlighting her efforts to invest in the area.
All of this is happening while the Israeli authorities are repressing human rights solidarity in the area, with at least six more international and three Israeli human rights observers banned from the area in the previous few weeks, with the aim of isolating Palestinian communities and promoting their propaganda unchecked.
Violence Erupts in Massafer Yatta: Illegal Settlers Attack Villagers and Destroy Property
By Dottie Lux, International Solidary Movement Masafer Yatta, July 4, 2024
— A wave of violence swept through the village of Khalet Al Daba’a in Masafer Yatta as settlers launched a series of attacks on local palestinians, culminating in severe injuries, destruction of property, and the abduction of a palestinian by israeli forces.
Around midnight, up to 200 settlers initiated their assault by setting fire to olive, grape, and fig trees, vital sources of livelihood for the villagers. The violence escalated rapidly as settlers began shooting live ammunition directly at local palestinians, creating a scene of chaos and fear. In a brutal display of aggression, settlers beat villagers with sticks and one palestinian was subsequently taken by israeli forces. The violence did not end in Khalet Al Daba’a.
The settlers moved to the nearby area of Um Fagarah, where they continued their rampage by destroying three vehicles including the fire truck sent there to control the damage. They physically assaulted more villagers and prevented ambulances from delivering aid.
These violent acts occurred under the supervision of the occupation police and army, who did not intervene to stop the onslaught. As a result of this aggression, several palestinians have been injured along with two international volunteers. With the community reeling from the impact of this unprovoked brutality the situation remains tense. Local leaders and concerned internationals are calling for immediate local and international attention. Most imporatantly they are asking for intervention to prevent further carnage and ensure the safety and security of the residents of Masafer Yatta. This press release highlights the urgency and gravity of the situation, calling for immediate attention and intervention. Further details are to follow.
A car that was burned by illegal Israeli settlers on the night of March 17.
In the days since a March 12 Knesset hearing that demonized human rights activists in the West Bank, it appears that Israeli authorities have escalated their repression of volunteers in the Masafer Yatta region of the south Hebron Hills (West Bank).
The aforementioned Knesset hearing, held in the “Subcommittee for Judea and Samaria,” was framed by a claim from Subcommittee Chair MK Tzvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism) that aid workers in the West Bank—Palestinian, Israeli, and international alike—were a key enemy in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Sukkot’s words were directly excerpted in Knesset News:
“For the military victory [in Gaza] to arrive, we have to remove everything that interferes with it. We can’t win without fighting against those who are doing everything they can to interfere with our justified war. That is the reason we have convened today, in the middle of the war, to discuss the issue of the anarchists.
“So much unnecessary verbiage has been uttered in the past about ‘settler violence,’ but people have not yet dealt here, in this House, with those who truly create a great deal of severe violence in Judea and Samaria—radical, anarchist left-wing activists who harass the IDF soldiers and heroic settlers. This is a scourge, and we are here to deal with it. I believe that after eradicating this malady, we will be one important step closer to the important victory.”
Remarks from other members of the subcommittee continued to valorize illegal Israeli settlers, and to state broadly that human rights volunteers in the West Bank are “antisemites, for all intents and purposes, and supporters of terrorism.”
Content of the discussions from the first half of the hearings is available to the public; the second half remains classified, but the Knesset suggested that the classified hearings “examined courses of action for expanding the tools for coping with the phenomenon” of activism in the West Bank.
One day following the Subcommittee hearings, on March 13, an Israeli activist was arrested in Masafer Yatta, after being threatened by gunfire from IOF soldiers, beside a Palestinian woman who was picking herbs in an area where they were permitted to do so under Israeli law.
Over the weekend, an international protective presence was detained and questioned by police, who accused them of falsifying their report: they had called the police because a Palestinian-owned car was set on fire in the night, and because the car owners had witnessed two presumed perpetrators escaping into the dark.
On March 20, a group of Israeli human rights volunteers were detained for two hours after reporting illegal settlers who had entered a village near Gwawis in Masafer Yatta. Police arrested one activist and banned them from the area for two weeks; the settlers were left alone.
These arrests follow a pattern that was proposed in the committee hearings: when volunteers call the police to report illegal settler violence, the police claim that their police report was false—and then arrest the volunteer who called the police on accusations of perjury and interfering with police work.
Grounds for this strategy to combat human rights volunteers were provided in the March 12 Knesset hearing by Commander Avishai Mualem of the Judea and Samaria District Police, who reported both that illegal Israeli settler violence has decreased by 50% since October 7, and that 47% of the police reports submitted in the south Hebron Hills (where Masafer Yatta is located) were “false complaints.”
Mualem’s narrative of a decrease in settler violence since October 7 is deeply questionable. The United Nations Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights reported on March 8 (OHCHR) that 603 illegal Israeli settler attacks had been tracked in the West Bank since October 7; in this violence, nine Palestinians were killed and 592 were displaced. The month of October was particularly brutal: the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) tracked an extreme escalation in settler violence in the first month after October 7, reporting that 43% of the almost 2,000 Palestinians displaced by settlers in the West Bank since 2022 were forced out of their homes between October 7 and November 1.
In Masafer Yatta alone, since Commander Mualem issued his report on March 12, various human rights volunteers have witnessed: illegal Israeli settlers raiding the village of Um Al-Khair, intimidating shepherds in Shaab al-Butum, and setting fire to the car of a family living at Um Dhorit. In all instances, the volunteers have called the police; in all instances, police have refused to offer any help to the attacked Masafer Yatta Palestinian residents. And indeed, in some cases, it has ultimately been the volunteer reporting the illegal settler crime who was instead arrested after the police arrived.
It is unclear whether the above interactions from these past days, in which the police were called but willingly chose to not intervene, would be categorized by Commander Mualem alongside the 47% of police reports that he contended were “false complaints.” But UN OHCHR reports that, from November 1, 2022 to October 31, 2023, only 66 out of 190 incidents in which Palestinians filed police complaints on illegal settler violence led to open investigations; of these, only two indictments were filed in response—and as of February 28, 2024, neither of these two open cases had been resolved. Out of the remaining 123 violent incidents in which no report was filed, in 86 cases the harmed Palestinians doubted the police would provide support pursuing the settler who harmed them, and thirteen did not report the violence out of fear that the police would arrest them instead. When called to enforce the law against illegal settler violence in the West Bank, the Israeli police have proven themselves unreliable for Palestinians — and the practice of retaliating against individuals who call for their support is evident.
But now, in the aftermath of the March 12 Knesset hearing, it appears that this risk of retaliation applies to human rights volunteers as well. One human rights volunteer interviewed witnessed this practice on multiple incidents throughout the week: “Historically, international and Israeli volunteers have been able to safely report settler crimes on the behalf of the Palestinians who the settlers attacked,” reported the volunteer, who chose to remain anonymous. “But this week, in the South Hebron Hills alone, I’m personally aware of two separate incidents when someone called in a crime caused by settlers—but it was the volunteer who was taken away by the police.”
When seeking legal enforcement support in the West Bank — where armed settlers disguise themselves as soldiers and seek to make their own laws themselves — both Palestinians and activists are losing one of their last resort options: now, when an nonviolent human rights activist calls the police when Palestinians are under attack, they invoke a high risk that they themselves will be arrested, within a police state that explicitly considers them to be an enemy, aligned with terrorism.
