Israeli settlers again attack Palestinian community featured in Oscar-winning documentary
Israeli settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, attacked a village in the Masafer Yatta area, hours before a documentary based on the occupied West Bank community’s struggle to exist won an Academy Award.
The head of the Susya village council, Jihad Nawajaa, told the Wafa news agency that Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian residents, threw stones, destroyed solar panels and damaged water tanks.
Israeli soldiers who accompanied the settlers during the rampage arrested at least three Palestinians, it added.
As we’ve been reporting, No Other Land, which documents the Palestinian struggle to save their homes in Masafer Yatta from demolition by the Israeli army, has won the Best Feature Documentary category at the Oscars.
Palestinian women gather beside the rubble of their house after it was demolished by Israeli authorities at Khirbet Ma’in in the Masafer Yatta area, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on January 25
Israeli forces wound minor, arrest 8 in West Bank
Israeli forces have carried out a wave of raids across Bethlehem governorate in the occupied West Bank, arresting six people.
Wafa reported that, in addition to the arrests, Israeli forces stormed the town of Biddya, west of Salfit, arresting at least one person and firing live rounds and sound bombs in the streets. A 16-year-old boy was wounded in the Israeli raid, the report added.
Israeli army’s raid of Jenin continues for 42nd day
The Israeli army’s deadly raid across the city of Jenin and its refugee camp has continued for the 42nd day. At least 27 Palestinians have been killed, dozens wounded and large amount of infratructure has been destroyed in the raids.
Wafa news agency reported that on Sunday night, “a three-month-old infant suffocated from the tear gas” that was fired by the Israeli soldiers at the entrance to Jenin refugee camp.
Wafa also reported that all entrances to the camp have been blocked by “dirt mounds, forcing citizens attempting to reach their homes to turn back”.
Destruction in Tulkarem and Jenin ‘just the beginning'
The mayor of Jenin has told Al Jazeera that never before has the Jenin refugee camp, where Israel has been carrying out mass raids and demolitions, been so empty – not even during the invasion in 2022 when 400 homes were demolished by Israeli forces, not even in the early 1950s when the camp was initially set up.
The really worrying thing for observers is that there is no end in sight. Palestinians see that Israel is creating permanent military outposts in locations it is destroying. It is vowing not to allow people to return.
The added trauma, of course, is that we’re talking about refugees. There are now tens of thousands of Palestinians uprooted with very little assistance to allow them to rebuild or persevere while this onslaught continues. What the Israeli government is saying is this is not the end. Tulkarem and Jenin are just the beginning.
Now what everybody else in the occupied West Bank is watching for is what will their camps turn into and, if their camps are decimated, what will happen to them.
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