Villagers in Um Al-Khair have been repeatedly prevented from bringing their sheep to graze on the outskirts of the village. In one such recent incident, settlers attacked the Palestinian shepherds, and together with Israeli police and civil administration officials claimed that the village’s water infrastructure was on settler land, and threatened that the residents of Um Al-Khair would be prevented access.
Water infrastructure threatened at Um Al-Khair
Umm al-Khair is a small Bedouin herding community. Its history is woven with the history of Palestine. Its Bedouin villagers were forced to flee their ancestral lands in 1948, a forced ethnic cleansing known as the Nakba, a word in Arabic analogous to the Hebrew Shoah, both meaning catastrophe. These refugees resettled in Um Al-Khair: “the good place”.
Within meters of Um Al-Khair lies Carmel, an illegal Israeli settlement began in 1980 and 1981. Um Al-Khair is now surrounded on three sides by the settlement, described as a “green oasis that looks like an American suburb”. Meanwhile, in stark contrast, over 100 homes, many simple tin structures, have been demolished by the Israeli Army in Um Al-Khair, a village of mostly children and youth.
Um Al-Khair is a village of artists and poets, who have continually rebuilt from the ruins.
Roses and a mural in Um Al-Khair stating “We will not leave Umm Al-Khair”Mahmoud Darwish quote on mural in Um Al-KhairMural about remembrance and perseverance in Um Al-Khair
In the words of one resident of the village, “I really do not understand what this damned hatred is. Why are people being fought by cutting off their water, and breaking the water network?… Water is a right for everyone… No one can live without water, so why are we always the ones who suffer? Isn’t it enough to attack us? Isn’t it enough to demolish our homes? Isn’t it enough to prevent us from obtaining electricity? Isn’t it enough to confiscate our lands? Cutting off water networks is a shameful and scandalous crime. I really wonder when the settlers will cut off our air? If they can, they will.”
She was deported after very perfunctory proceedings at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court. Israeli police alleged in a public statement that Alison “supported a terrorist organization”. Her attorney pointed out that this claim had no basis. Nevertheless, the presiding judge issued a verdict couched in fiery nationalist rhetoric, claiming that “There are many faces to Hamas terror. There are various kinds of terrorists. Some terrorists wield guns and bombs while others use a computer keyboard”.
The Human Rights Defender was taken to the Ben Gurion Airport, and deported, with a decree issued to bar her re-entry. Itamar Ben Gvir, the Kahane linked Minister of Police in the Netanyahu government, issued a personal statement celebrating “The deportation of the Belgian terrorist supporter who had supported the Hamas Nazis” and “congratulating the Judea and Samaria Police for their good work”.
In the last month and a half, the charge of being a “supporter of a terrorist organization” has become an excuse for an extensive campaign of political persecution against anyone who dares to post any protest the unfolding genocide in Gaza. This is affected against Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship, and against Israeli Jews such as the teacher Meir Baruchin who was detained for almost a week on completely unfounded charges. In the Gaza Strip, a far more brutal procedure for the same allegations is implemented. A Gazan journalist or political activist accused of “supporting Hamas” may expect to be targeted and/or have their family targeted by a missile from an Israeli warplane. Such was, for example, the fate of Ahmed Abu Artema and countless other Palestinian activists and journalists.
In the case of human rights defender Alison Russell, the far-fetched charges of “supporting terrorism” or “keyboard terrorism” cover up the real reason for her detention and deportation. In court, the state asserted that “she had many times disrupted the activities of the IDF troops, whenever she came in contact with them”. Indeed, it is highly disturbing for the troops to have outside observers and witnesses present where acts of oppression take place, which often constitute blatant violations of International Law.
Not in vain do the soldiers regularly confiscate the mobile phones of activists and even the footage of international TV crews. Alison, like the other human rights defenders who come from all over the world to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their difficult time, together with Israeli people of conscience, are struggling to stem the wave of ethnic cleansing which is going on all over the West Bank, under cover of the war in Gaza.
The shepherd communities, the most vulnerable part of Palestinian society, have become the target of a brutal attack by the fanatic settler militias, and already sixteen such communities have been forced to leave their land under violent attacks and explicit threats of murder.
The tiny villages at Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills are attacked by settlers on one side and the army on the other: The settlers attack the villages, destroy whatever is at hand and threaten entire communities with murder, and in these criminal acts they enjoy complete immunity from the police and army. For its part, the army arrives to destroy the houses of the villagers, houses which were declared to be “illegal” by the Supreme Court. Alison was detained and deported when she tried to document the destruction of one of these houses..
The police had stated “a deportation order from Israel” was issued to Alison, as well as a decree to “prevent her from entering Israel” in the future. We would like to emphasize that Alison never wanted to “enter Israel”. She wanted to come to the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, by the express invitation of Palestinian residents to document and intervene in human rights abuses and stop an ongoing nakba.
In the words of Alison herself, “The UN, created when the world was saying ‘nie wieder faschismus,’ has given up on Palestine. But right now, right here, in a tiny little corner of Palestine, there are a dozen villages that are under direct and immediate threat. When the handful of determined people that are here manage to organize a group to sleep in the hamlets, we delay their expulsion…I’m here ‘cos I really think our action is effective. Please make it more effective by getting involved too.”
Alison points to a sign that says, “Humanitarian support to Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer in the West Bank.”
On Tuesday evening, the Israeli occupation forces carried out a military operation that lasted for 10 continuous hours resulting in the killing of 6 Palestinians and the destruction of the camp’s infrastructure – streets, and roads, shelling of the al-Balaawneh Diwan, and two other houses.
Occupation forces destruction of Tulkarm
While the residents of the camp were enjoying the calm on Tuesday evening around 11: 00, the residents of the city of Tulkarm, and the residents of the Tulkarm refugee camp specifically, woke up due to the news of the storming of dozens of military vehicles to the city and to the camp. Eyewitnesses said that about 40 military vehicles, including jeeps and D9 bulldozers, stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp.
Israeli snipers were deployed everywhere, especially on the roofs of Palestinian houses inside the camp and its surroundings, as well as inside buildings under construction in the city, targeting anything that moved.
The Israeli occupation bulldozers began bulldozing the main roads in the camp as usual, destroying the infrastructure as they did in the previous incursion, and destroying the water and sewage network.
An Israeli drone also targeted the building (Diwan Al-balaawneh), a public property of the camp, and targeted those inside it. Four Palestinians were killed who had been inside the building. Two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers.
Three houses were destroyed with moderate damage, a car was burned and three other cars were damaged, belonging to two civilian residents of the camp.
Feelings of fear, tension, and despair prevailed among the residents of the camp because the Israeli occupation forces continued to storm the camp, kill Palestinians, and destroy the infrastructure, streets, and roads in the camp.
Hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of the bodies of the 6 martyrs in the camp. Their bodies were transferred to their families’ home for a final farewell look, after which their bodies were transferred to the UNRWA school to pray for them. And because of their large number, the number of camp residents participating in the funeral alike. The camp residents carried the bodies of the martyrs on their shoulders and chanted words expressing anger, unity and resistance to the occupation inlegitimate ways. Until they arrive at the cemetery of Denabaa.
Tulkarm residents gather for the funeral of 6 martyrs of the occupation army raid.
The Israeli occupying forces continue to commit and intensify their crimes against the Palestinian people in the West Bank, in particular in the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the number of martyrs of the West Bank since October 7 has reached more than 215.
Grief and fear persist for Palestinians in Tulkarm and across the occupied West Bank.
URGENT: Contact occupation authorities to demand the release of human rights monitor:
On November 22nd, 2023 early in the morning, Israeli occupation forces bulldozed a family home in Sha’ab Al-Butum in the Yatta region of the occupied West Bank which has seen soaring levels of extremist settler and IOF violence against Palestinians and human rights defenders.
Palestinian family watches as bulldozers arrive
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 916 home demolitions in the West Bank, in 2023 alone. As international human rights monitors were present to document the destruction of the residence, occupation authorities arrested a peaceful Belgian/British foreign national and currently have her detained in a central police station.
Human rights worker being led away under arrest during demolition.
The human rights worker, Alison Russell, was standing peacefully at the site of the demolition, and was arrested on outrageous allegations of “publications supporting Hamas” “disturbing soldiers,” “desecration of state symbols,” and “supporting a terror organization”. Alison Russell was brought before a judge on Thursday, November 23, 2023, and charged with “praising, encouraging, or publishing a call to do an act of violence” “damaging the respect of the country’s flag or other symbols” and “disturbing a public worker”. The judge extended Alison’s detention until Sunday, November 26th.
Since October 7th, human rights defenders monitoring this campaign of escalating violence and terror against occupied Palestinians in the West Bank have been groped, verbally assaulted, held at gunpoint, had their phones smashed and confiscated, and the passwords to their devices demanded by occupation forces along with their proxies, the extremist ideological settlers working to ethnically cleanse the area in the South Hebron Hills.
Palestinian women and children survey the damage of the home demolition in Sha’ab al-Butum
Documenting the atrocities occurring in the occupied West Bank has included reporting on the ethnic cleansing of 16 Palestinian villages in Massafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. The Palestinian families in these villages are enduring violent raids, the smashing of their vehicles, the destruction of their farming equipment, the slashing of their water tanks, invasion of their homes and threats that if they do not abandon their homes and villages to the settlers, they would all be murdered within 24 hours.
Free speech is not treason or terrorism. Even Israel’s state prosecutor has previously warned Israeli police that unjustified arrest of dissenters harms the rule of law. International human rights workers and Israeli peace activists are being arrested and jailed for speaking out against settler violence, apartheid, massacres, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. These same unfounded, absurd accusations, when leveled at Palestinians in the West Bank, result in their arrest and torture. And these same unfounded, absurd accusations when directed towards human rights activists in Gaza, result in missiles killing them or their families, as has occurred with Kahlil Abu Yahia, Ahmed Abu-Artema and others.
Urgent action is needed to demand occupation forces release Alison Russell and stop the arrests and prosecution of all international, Israeli, and Palestinian peace activists and human rights workers:
State Prosecuter Eisman:
Email: Amitai@justice.gov.il
On November 20th, 2023, several of us, Palestinians and internationals, responded to document settlers and soldiers confiscating a young person’s phone and threatening and harassing their household in Al-Rakiz, at the outskirts of Tuwani.
The motley bunch of 10-12 local illegal settlers masquerading as soldiers, some masked, didn’t like our being there and watching this abuse of power.
While there, soldiers shoved us, hit us with a gun, groped our breasts, called us misogynist slurs, threw us to the ground, used their phones to photograph us, ripped the camera out of our hands and stole a phone we were using for documentation. The camera of a Japanese national tv news crew on the scene was also stolen.
In recent weeks, human rights monitors have repeatedly had their cameras and phones stolen and destroyed by Israeli police and soldiers. Police and soldiers have also threatened human rights monitors with violence and inflicted violence on human rights monitors in attempts to force them to hand over their passwords.
These acts of aggression towards people documenting human rights abuses have become commonplace in the West Bank in recent weeks.
Ida B. Wells, anti-lynching investigative journalist and black freedom movement elder wrote, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
Those committing harm and atrocities need their violence to stay hidden for it to continue. In fact, on X (formerly Twitter), Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for all “criticisms of ‘settler violence’” to “completely vanish from the public discourse.” Far-right Israeli politicians are attempting to foster a culture of violence in which settler violence is excused, encouraged, armed, and deputized. The International Solidarity Movement calls upon all individuals, governments, and international bodies to enforce an arms embargo on the State of Israel to prevent more weapons from getting into the hands of extremist settler militias bent on violence and ethnic cleansing.
