The Palestinian Killing of Palestinians in the West Bank: The Abu Alaa Effect of the Gaza Attack on the Palestinians, the Israeli Human Rights Group and the Palestine Human Rights Organization
The people of the West Bank and inside Israel are wondering if their lives will become harder as a result of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
“These people in Gaza have been under siege for so long and have been killed in such a way, this is why the war took place,” Abu Alaa said. There will be similar things to happen if the situation continues here with settlers. People will feel the same way in Gaza.
The UN Secretary-General said that the “collective punishment” of the 1,400 people who died in the Hamas attack doesn’t excuse it. He has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and demanded Hamas release the hostages. Two were released today.
The worst killing of civilians in the history of Israel took place in the West Bank in the wake of the Hamas attack. Many in settler violence according to witnesses and human rights groups.
Under the cover of the war in Gaza and rocket fire on Israel, there has been a significant increase in settler violence across the occupied West Bank against Palestinians, according to researcher Dror Etkes of the Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem, who has studied Israeli land policies around settlements for decades.
Many residents of the towns hid inside safe rooms and were waiting for Israel to rescue them. For hours no one came. The scene when they emerged was unlike anything they’d seen before.
Now, images of the dead are plastered everywhere. They’re visible on the walls of homes and offices. The backdrop of these posters are Palestinian flags and printed at the bottom of the posters are the words “martyr” and “killed by the bullets of settlers.”
The mayor said even their funerals are not safe. He worked with Israeli authorities in order to make sure that the road where the first four men died was safe for mourners. But they found settlers and soldiers in their path, he said.
Palestinians brace for more violence after reprisal attacks in Qusra. Israel-palestine-hamas-west-bank is a trap
“It was a trap,” he said. “They had posted on their social media that we will take revenge. These people are very violent against the people of Qusra. But the war empowered them.”
“The politics of this place are built upon fear and racism,” he said. Etkes added that though it is too early for exact figures on how much violence has increased, “I don’t think that I would be wrong if I would say that in the last week, we have seen increase of hundreds of percents.”
There have been no arrests in relation to the six killings in Qusra. The incidents are being investigated. All of the attacks seem to be that way since the war began. A lawyer who represents settlers accused of violence told NPR that there have been many shootings on Palestinians since Oct. 7th and not one arrest.
In response to a query to the Israeli military on whether one of their soldiers killed a Palestinian in Qusra, the military said it was checking but didn’t respond with further information.
At the gathering hall in the center of the village, women come to pay their respects to the family members of the dead. They sit side-by-side on couches, pillows and plastic chairs, crying as they pass around and kiss posters of the men who were killed.
Palestinians brace for more violence after reprisal attacks in the West Bank: The case of the Israeli-Palestinian settlers
Hassan Mohanned Abu Sarour was among the young men who heeded the call to help when the armed settlers attacked. The 21-year-old was shot. His mother sits quietly in the hall as her aunt and cousin protect her.
The goal of this violence she said is to make it untenable for Palestinians to stay on their land. Other places have already seen depopulation. There are no Palestinians in Al-Qanub or Wadi Al-Sik because of violence by Israeli settlers.
The UN Security Council says the settlements are against international law. They’re a bad idea for future peace. Expectations were raised that the West Bank would be a part of a future state when the Oslo Accords were signed. Israel still maintains authority in the West Bank.
The road from Jerusalem to Qusra shows how far beyond reach a two-state solution seems to be. Palestinian villages dot the horizon alongside Israeli settlements that are rapidly expanding.
There are billboards on the main highway in Israel that feature real estate projects for cheaper housing. The Israeli government supports the expansion of settlements.
Source: Palestinians brace for more violence after reprisal attacks in the West Bank
Israelis brace for more violence after reprisal attacks in the West Bank: Abu Alaa, the mayor, and the mayor of the occupied village
“I see the future as a bleak future. I see it as a black future,” he said, adding that “we are not against the Jews. We are against the extremism of the settlers encouraged by government officials.”
At the limits of Abu Alaa’s village he points to empty land. A business man has abandoned his plans to build a building. The farmers who tended chickens have left because of the violence. He points to the hilltop across the way, to three settlements and an Israeli military outpost. There is a place where settlers come to attack them.
“Their intention is to separate us from the villages and cities in the West Bank,” Abu Alaa said. “They’ve cut us off from the south, they’ve cut us off from Ramallah.”
For the mayor, that separation and the pressure to abandon these lands echo what’s unfolded in Gaza –- where Palestinians have lived under a 16-year blockade implemented by Israel and Egypt.
“The more aggressiveness on the one side, the more the aggressiveness from the other side,” he said. I told the Israeli people that they needed to be aware of the killings on both sides.
With an M16 hanging at his waist and a gun on him, Nati Romhas said he helped establish some of the new Israeli settlements in the area. Rom believes life in the occupied West Bank is a battle and hopes other Israelis are coming around to his view.
“Unfortunately, in the last years, because of the propaganda and progressive things, like, disarm, so many of the villagers were disarmed,” he told Shapiro. “Now we are working very hard to solve this and to give guns to the people, to civilian groups.”
“The future is that we will be able to eliminate the snake,” Rom said. “They all want to kill us, some of them telling it straight away, and some of them keep it to themselves.”
Source: Palestinians brace for more violence after reprisal attacks in the West Bank
The battle between Israel and Gaza: The tragedy of the occupied village of Be’eri, southern Israel, after the israel-israel border attack
Rom denies that settlers from Esh Kodesh fatally shot any villagers in Qusra. Asked if there are any good people in the village, Rom said, if so, they need to immediately evacuate.
The most violent wing of the community is a group that’s bigger than Nati and other settlers. The occupied West Bank is seen by many across the spectrum as a part of an ongoing struggle.
In a settlement called Eli at the top of a hill surrounded by olive groves, husband and wife Gedaliah and Elisheva Blum are convinced Israelis and Palestinians are locked in a battle that proves they cannot live side-by-side.
I don’t believe it’s a fight over land. I think it’s a fight over culture. It’s a battle over ideologies,” said Gedaliah, who wonders “at what point do we say we can’t live with these people?”
BE’ERI – To walk the streets of the small village of Be’eri in southern Israel nowadays is to relive the horrors from the single deadliest attack on civilians in Israel’s 75-year history.
The streets of this once close-knit community are now lined with partially destroyed homes. Some were burned and others were blown open. Inside one are blood-splattered walls. In two children’s rooms there are books, stuffed animals and paint supplies. Blood can be seen on the mattresses in white bed frames.
On the road leading into this kibbutz, a backhoe scoops up the bodies of Hamas militants who stormed this community of just over 1000 people about three miles from the border with Gaza.
The Israeli military has lead journalists through this village in recent days to give a glimpse of what happened after Hamas crossed the border from the Gaza into Israel undetected, storming several towns and taking hundreds of hostages.
survivors are still waiting to identify bodies more than a week after the Hamas attack set off the war between Israel and Hamas
“We’re just still trying to figure out how we’re going to deal with so many funerals,” Alom told NPR’s Morning Edition . We don’t know what to do with them because it’s not safe.
“I just don’t know how to deal with it,” he said “For more than four or five hours we were slaughtered and no one came to help us. I don’t know whose fault it is I know we’ve been slaughtered.
Noy Katsman and the Palestinian Enclave: The Case for Israel’s Right-Wing Government and the Israel-Israeli War
Their anger is not yet aimed so much at the government for its intelligence failure or Israeli forces for their delayed rescues, but toward the Palestinian enclave.
Miles away from the border with Gaza, sitting in a Jerusalem cafe, 27-year-old Noy Katsman said they wants the war to stop. They know Alom’s pain but use it in a different way.
Hayim, their brother, passed away in the village about a mile from Gaza. Hayim was hiding in the closet when Hamas militants shot him and was one of 30 Americans killed in the attack.
In life, Hayim was a peace activist. He wrote his doctorate on the dangers of the right wing in Israel and was critical of the government for encouraging illegal Israeli settlements and uplifting extreme anti-Arab voices.
Despite his tragic killing, he would say we should never kill innocent people, and this would encourage Israelis to re-think the consequences of reprisal.
The government said they need to kill more Palestinians instead of saying they failed. We need to now destroy Hamas,” said Katsman. “It’s right-wing politicians who gain power from violence and hate, these are the people who gain from it. But we lose from it.”
“You need a basic understanding of how people feel,” they added. “And if after they kill us, a thousand people, we are going to kill three thousand of them, that’s not an understanding of people, because these people will grow up and hate us even more.”
“That’s the problem – Israelis only care if something is pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel,” they said. The question is a distraction. People die. People die from both sides.”