The escalation of attacks on Masafer Yatta in the West Bank comes after the Israeli Supreme Court named the area an Israeli army “firing zone” from which villagers can be expelled.
Woman sitting on the ruins of her house destroyed by Israeli authorities in Masafer Yatta in January. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Israeli forces continued their campaign of repression and colonization in the Palestinian village of Masafer Yatta over the weekend, leading to multiple injuries, including to a 6-year old child.
Settlers from the nearby settlement in Hebron, along with the Israeli army, harassed and physically assaulted activists and residents of Masafer Yatta, intensifying the attempts to expel the Palestinians from their homes, according to multiple reports from the ground.
The escalation comes in the aftermath of the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling last year that the village falls under the “firing zone” of the Israeli army and that Palestinian residents can be expelled from the area.
Massafer Yatta in the Hebron Hills, West Bank. (UN OCHA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Over 3,000 Palestinians live in Masafer Yatta, spread out over 14 smaller villages. Rights groups warn that following the court order the Israeli army can evict and forcibly relocate villagers at any moment.
On Sunday, illegal Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli soldiers, invaded the village and attacked Palestinians and their property, including agricultural land. Some of the settlers let their livestock free on Palestinian-owned agricultural land which led to extensive damage, while others set fire to the Palestinians’ crops. They also prevented Palestinian livestock from grazing on nearby pastoral areas.
Masafer Yatta, West Bank. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Following the Supreme Court order, the Israeli army has paved the way for settlers to build six new settlement outposts and herd their livestock in the area, in blatant violation of international law.
As threats of displacement and dispossession have intensified, so has the resistance to these efforts. Palestinians have been holding regular protests and demonstrations against the violence and attacks from settlers and the Israeli army. These protests have been met with more state repression.
Osama Makhamra, an activist, said that a group of settlers brutally beat up Ameen Dawoud, 6, in the aforementioned area shortly after they assaulted his family and siblings while they were grazing their livestock.
More: https://t.co/brnjPkdZl1 pic.twitter.com/iBMwQ22X1C
— Wafa News Agency – English (@WAFANewsEnglish) June 4, 2023
Palestinians have also appealed to the international community and human rights groups to pressure Israel to end its illegal attempts to take over their land.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry reiterated this appeal over the weekend, calling on the international community, especially the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Israel’s foremost ally, the United States, to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war crimes and human rights violations in defiance of U.N. resolutions and international law.
The director-general of Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq noted that the recent intensification of Israeli settlement and annexation activities is due to waning international pressure and scrutiny on the Israeli government. According to reports, Israel plans to build and expand 10 illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the area.
This article is from Peoples Dispatch.
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For starters — in our decades- long search for a try at World Peace, “Let and Let Live,”
we need to ship Trump and Netanyahu off to Mars — minus parachutes or a return ticket.
(It is a fact, by the way, that the United States sends more foreign aid to Israel
than any other country. Most of that aid is used for weapons of war.
I could never fathom how the Jews, fresh from the unforgettable horrors of the
Holocaust, upon their return to form their much-deserved State of Israel,
should begin the genocide of the Palestinians, continuing to this day —
while the Israeli Army stands by to allow the illegal settlers to tear
down long-held and owned Palestinian lands and homes.!
Complexity IN A NUTSHELL!
What causes conscience diminisment in majority populations’?
What are the causes of overt pathlogical behavior in human populations?
“Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy, and poor behavioral controls, commonly resulting in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behavior”.
The specific, exceptionalist foreign policy mentality of American ‘diplomacy’ is in fact [persistent antisocial, deviant, criminal behavior]!
Didn’t Jews suffer enough under Hitler? And now Palestinians are being made to suffer under Jews. SHAME!!!
No further evidence is needed as to the chokehold Israeli backers have over the US corporate media and politicians. America is not a sovereign functioning democracy. It is a captured vassal state, subservient to barbaric criminals.
And the complicit Arab states “normalising” relations with Israel.
“They ransack our village for sport’: one Palestinian farmer’s story of Israeli settler violence”
“As an Israeli minister calls for a Palestinian town to be ‘wiped out’, an olive farmer tells of living with fear in the West Bank”
Doha Asous
Sun 5 Mar 2023 the Guardian
A harrowing tale of persecution; the very thing the Jews should know a lot about, and therefore refrain from committing.
Brutal, bully, tyrannical Israelites who will play the victim card with holocaust movies being somehow blind to becoming the victimizer themselves. And their American face as AIPAC here is an extension of Israel’s leadership with its poisonous force in American politics today. Shame on the USA for pouring billions into this mean, callous, apartheid country who not so covertly is saying, sure, go ahead, use the Palestinians as a shooting gallery of human ducks. Detestable.
You’re right, Hollywood plays its part massively and so do channels like the BBC that supply a never ending stream of Nazi Holocaust material, all deliberate so the masses see them as eternal victims, despite the barbarism they are now carrying out.
Truth is they’re no different to their oppressors.
Pure evil is what they’re doing to the indigenous people there.
IT’S WAY PAST TIME FOR THE U.S. TO RENOUNCE ISRAEL’S CONDUCT TOWARDS THE PALESTINIANS. FAILURE TO DO SO MAKES ALL CLAIMS OF SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRACY & JUSTICE BOGUS.
I feel sick after reading that, this is pure ethnic cleansing, ignored by a complicit West. When will the horror for these poor people end? It’s like the whole world is against them…
No not the whole world is against the Palestinians., just the “exceptional”paragon of innocence, democracy and justice USA and MSM in collusion with Israel, consciously pretending that Israel is a poor, beleaguered democracy just defending themselves against overwhelming craven hoards of Palestinians and their youngsters. Do you wonder if American leadership will ever get it that its vaunted, empty exceptionalism is believed by no one?
Sadly I don’t think they ever will