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A Palestinian man sits on the rubble of a destroyed house in the Gaza Strip after 11 days of violence in May. (Photo: Mahmoud Issa/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
![Palestinian children fill up gallons with water in Gaza City on 20 May 2021. [MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56e619ec59827e4b8476aa75/1633438355524-9AWIR82Y3ZLORVTNIV3Q/image.png)
Palestinian children fill up gallons with water in Gaza City on 20 May 2021. [MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images]
Bi-Weekly Brief for October 4, 2021
A one page digest of Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinian land and livelihoods, and Palestinian resistance.
Bennett hopes to skirt international condemnation as he presides over settlement expansion
While the Biden administration lines up with Naftali Bennett’s ‘philosophy’ of ‘shrinking the conflict’ as the best way to manage a forever occupation, there is no sign that Israel will shrink the lethal repression taking Palestinian lives. On a single day (Sept. 30) Israeli forces killed a man trapping birds in the Gaza Strip, a mother of 3 in East Jerusalem and a 22-year-old in Burqin near Jenin. Bennett rejects the ‘two-state solution’ given lip service by US officials and has done nothing to restrain settler violence. But he is in no hurry to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the vital ‘E1’ area on the edge of East Jerusalem, that would enable the West Bank to be cut in half. On Sept. 29, Israel’s High Court postponed for 6 months a hearing on the fate of the ‘E1’ village of Khan al-Ahmar whose removal has been planned for a decade. The government had requested the delay “in consideration of the current diplomatic-security situation.”
Struggle over Evaytar outpost near Nablus takes another life as scores are injured
On Sept. 23, a procession left the village of Beita for Mount Sabih to call for the removal of settler caravans from the outpost site. Soldiers opened fire, shooting 28-year-old Mohammad Khabeisa in the head, making him the 8th person killed in 5 months of protests against Evyatar. On Oct. 1, 90 villagers were injured when the army fired at another protest march. According to a March 2021 B’Tselem report, by the end of 2020 there were more than 280 settlements in the West Bank and 150 outposts which, like Evyatar, are not officially recognized by Israel but could be granted retroactive recognition.
“A Pogram, and Silence”: this is how Haaretz described a settler attack in the South Hebron Hills
On Sept. 28, dozens of young settlers from 2 outposts descended on Khirbat al-Mufkara in Masafer Yatta where they first entered a barn and stabbed 4 sheep to death. They then rampaged through streets, barged into homes, smashed solar panels, windows and windshields and overturned cars, while protected by the army. A 3-year-old boy was among the 15 residents injured in the attack. On Oct. 2, hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians, including 2 members of the Knesset, marched to the village to demand that it be connected to the water supply serving the outpost of Avigayil.
Settlers are shock troops in a collaborative project
Amira Hass has described how “in Masafer Yatta, as in the rest of the territory of the West Bank, the seemingly privatized violence of the settlers serves the official policy” of driving Palestinians off the land. According to the UN, from January through Sept. 20 there were 333 settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. That number is rapidly rising. On Sept 23, settlers leveled al-‘Ayoun village lands
and shot at villagers who tried to stop them. An EU delegation was present when settlers attacked Susya village south of Hebron on Sept. 24. Bent on occupying the lands of Rashayda and Kisan villages near Bethlehem, settlers forced shepherds from their fields on Sept. 30. Nine days earlier Israel had ordered the seizure of 48,700 dunums of land from Kisan to turn it into a ‘nature reserve.’
Water Fact
Among the ‘good will gestures’ announced by Israel on Sept. 1 in the effort to subvert protests against the blockade was the expansion of Gaza’s fishing zone to 15 nautical miles from shore. Fishermen were not impressed, stating that their inability to get spare parts for their aging boats during the 15 years of closure has made it impossible to sail out that far, and that just as Israel wanted to force Palestinian farmers off the land, it “wants to force fishermen out of the sea.” Their skepticism has been borne out by repeated attacks by the Israeli navy, beginning with a Sept. 2 attack on boats within 6 nautical miles and followed by nearly a dozen subsequent attacks, most of them occurring when fishermen were within 3 nautical miles from shore.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
“We organized one of the largest demonstrations that has ever been seen in the South Hebron Hills. We built a massive coalition in support, pulling in partners from All that's Left, Breaking the Silence, Standing Together, Machsom Watch, The Jordan Valley Coalition, Zazim, Peace Now, Imahot4 and more. Over six-hundred activists came out to march together and demand equal access to water for Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills.”
Watch a video of the demonstration here; it was produced by @HebronWatch.
“The United Nations also took up our call, demanding an equitable distribution of water between Israelis and Palestinians, in a report issued last Friday. Read the article below, from the Jerusalem Post, talking about the UN Resolution.
In a stunning turn of events, we are thrilled to announce that we have achieved success. The pressure created by our massive water rights campaign (and the retaliative violence from the settlers/military this past week), has made a huge impact. The Israeli military officer in charge of the area, General Yehuda Fuchs, met with the local village leader and promised:
"The area will receive all it needs, just like the settlements, it is in between two settlements and should be getting its needs met just the same."
We are hopeful that this appears to be an official promise to connect the village of Al Mofakara, outside of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills, to the water grid. We intend to remain vigilant, and hold the army to their promise!”