Latest news with #AliAwad
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Palestinians fear razing of villages in West Bank, as settlers circle their homes
Ali Awad is tired. The 27-year-old resident of Tuba, one of the dozen or so villages that make up Masafer Yatta in the arid south Hebron hills of the occupied West Bank, had been up all night watching as a masked Israeli settler on horseback circled his family home. 'When we saw the masked settler, we knew he wanted violence,' said Awad, his eyes bloodshot. They were lucky this time: the settler disappeared into the darkness before police could show up. The men in Masafer Yatta rarely sleep these days. They take turns standing watch at night, fearful that nearby Israeli settlers will attack under the cover of darkness. Daylight brings little respite. Residents work with an ear pricked up for the sound of approaching vehicles, scanning the horizon for Israeli bulldozers which could signal their homes are next to be demolished. Israel designated Masafer Yatta a military training zone – named firing zone 918, where no civilians can live – in 1981. It has been working since to push out the roughly 1,200 residents who remain. These residents have been fighting in Israeli courts for more than two decades to stop their expulsion, a battle which has slowed, but not stopped, the demolition of Palestinian homes there. Recently, an Israeli administrative body issued a decision which legal experts and activists have said could remove the last remaining legal barriers for the demolition of homes in Masafer Yatta. The decision could lead to the forcible transfer of 1,200 people, something the UN warned could be a war crime. 'This would amount to forcible transfer, which is a war crime. It could also amount to a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,' the UN human rights office said on 26 June. On 18 June, the civil administration's central planning bureau, the Israeli military agency that issues construction permits in occupied Palestinian territories, issued a directive that all pending building requests in Masafer Yatta be rejected. Previously, residents could file building planning requests and, while they were being examined, their structures could not legally be demolished. By cancelling all pending requests, the new directive dismisses all previously submitted cases without examining their particularities and gives demolitions the green light. The decision was made at the same time as Israeli authorities are pursuing sharply increased numbers of demolitions across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, destroying 933 structures since the beginning of the year, a record-breaking pace, according to UN data. As structures are demolished, more Palestinians are killed in the West Bank, with at least 950 killed and 9,000 injured by Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the war in Gaza on 7 October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. The new directive cites a military planning document issued a day earlier, which said that firing zone 918 was necessary for combat preparedness and that the presence of civilian structures prevented training exercises. The document says: 'The practical condition for such [military training] access is the removal of the unauthorised constructions, thus enabling the IDF to conduct its training … No construction in the firing zone can be permitted.' It adds that for live-fire exercises to be conducted, the area needs to be 'sterile'. According to a lawyer representing residents of Masafer Yatta, Netta Amar-Shiff, the new directive bypasses a previous legal ruling and abrogates local laws, and could rapidly expedite the destruction of villages. 'If this directive is activated, it means planning institutions can dismiss building requests under military auspices, so no civilian construction and development can be approved. It's easier for them to eliminate entire villages,' Amar-Shiff said. Humanitarian organisations have long accused Israel of establishing firing zones as an excuse to push Palestinians off their land and expand settlement construction. About 18% of Area C, the parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, has been designated as firing zones. According to government meeting minutes in 1981, the then agriculture minister and future PM, Ariel Sharon, proposed the creation of firing zone 918 with the purpose of forcing Palestinians out of the area. In the meeting, Sharon told the IDF he wanted to expand shooting zones 'in order to keep these areas … in our hands', pointing to 'the expansion of the Arab villagers' in the area. In a comment, the Israeli military said the civil administration was 'holding ongoing discussions regarding villages built within the boundaries of firing zone 918' and that the military had a 'vital need for the area'. 'As a general rule, no approval will be granted for construction within the firing zone, which is designated as a closed military area,' the Israeli military said in a statement to the Guardian, adding that building permit requests were subject to approval by military command. To Awad, last week's decision is the latest attempt in a long line of court decisions and policies by the Israeli government to expel the residents of Masafer Yatta from their homes. In May 2022, Israel's high court ruled that the residents could be expelled and the land repurposed for military use, as it said villagers were not permanent residents of the area before the firing zone was declared. Residents and lawyers, relying on expert testimony and literature, said they had inhabited the area for decades. 'This decision was a clear way of cutting the last nerve of life that these people had,' said Awad, calling it part of a larger policy of 'ethnic cleansing of Palestinians'. Awad and the other residents of Masafer Yatta have spent more than two decades filing petitions, appeals, proposing master plans and submitting documents to try to fight the destruction of their community. 'We tried for many years to supply different documents and proofs and plans to the courts. But, after years of this, a commander in the army says no and that's enough,' said Nidal Younis, head of the Masafer Yatta council, in a press briefing late last month. As the residents navigate Israel's labyrinthine bureaucracy to stave off demolition orders, settlers have acted as the extrajudicial vanguard of displacement, making daily life nearly intolerable for Palestinians. Almost every single resident has a story about being harassed or attacked by nearby settlers, whose presence has been slowly growing, with new outposts popping up on the area's hilltops. In the early hours of 25 June, settlers set fire to Nasser Shreiteh's home in the town of Susiya, burning his kitchen and a bedroom almost entirely, running off as he tried to extinguish the fire. 'They want to evict everyone, they want everyone to disappear. But I am here, if they burn my house down, I will stay here, I have no other place to go,' said Shreiteh, a 50-year-old with seven children, as he overlooked the charred remains of his kitchen. As he spoke, an Israeli military patrol passed and behind it roared a beaten-up sedan driven by settlers, swerving in circles as the car's trunk swung open. They pulled up to Shreiteh's driveway and made an obscene hand gesture before driving off. Incidents of settler violence in the area have sharply increased since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza. The rise of the far-right, extremist ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir has provided political cover, allowing settlers to act with virtual impunity. Many settlers have been called to military reserves, where they serve around their settlements. Residents of Masafer Yatta said settlers would often walk around in military dress, such as combat trousers, which made it impossible to tell whether they were dealing with settlers or soldiers. Settler violence has escalated the tighter residents have clung to their land. In late January, settlers torched Awad's car, which he had used to transport children to school and residents to legal hearings. Souad al-Mukhamari, a 61-year-old resident of Sfai, another village in Masafer Yatta, complained that one of her granddaughters, a child, had been beaten and pepper-sprayed by a settler a month earlier. Her own home overlooked the debris of a school that was demolished in 2022. Palestinians can do little to protect themselves from settler violence, and are severely punished if they attempt to do so. They complain that Israeli authorities fail to protect them and do not follow up on their complaints. Legal advocates have said they expect little protection from Israel's legal system, but instead are looking to the international community to increase pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction and protect the rights of Palestinians. 'We don't see any possibility of internal change within Israel to protect these communities,' said Sarit Michaeli, an international advocacy officer at the Israeli human rights group B'tselem. 'The only way to stop this is whether there is clear international action to clarify to Israeli policymakers that actions have consequences,' she added. The Trump administration has expressed little interest in addressing illegal settlement construction and violence, lifting Biden-era sanctions on settlers. Instead, Michaeli said the EU could play a role in pressuring Israeli officials, especially as it announced at the end of May that it is reviewing its association agreement with Israel over human rights compliance concerns. As residents of Masafer Yatta wait for international action, they live under the constant threat of displacement and settler violence, their means of resistance all stripped away one at a time. Still, they are determined to stay. 'Just mentally we are preparing for more demolitions. There's nothing more on the ground we can do, besides putting our words in the media so they can reach farther than we can scream,' Awad said.
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Palestinians fear razing of villages in West Bank, as settlers circle their homes
Ali Awad is tired. The 27-year-old resident of Tuba, one of the dozen or so villages that make up Masafer Yatta in the arid south Hebron hills of the occupied West Bank, had been up all night watching as a masked Israeli settler on horseback circled his family home. 'When we saw the masked settler, we knew he wanted violence,' said Awad, his eyes bloodshot. They were lucky this time: the settler disappeared into the darkness before police could show up. The men in Masafer Yatta rarely sleep these days. They take turns standing watch at night, fearful that nearby Israeli settlers will attack under the cover of darkness. Daylight brings little respite. Residents work with an ear pricked up for the sound of approaching vehicles, scanning the horizon for Israeli bulldozers which could signal their homes are next to be demolished. Israel designated Masafer Yatta a military training zone – named firing zone 918, where no civilians can live – in 1981. It has been working since to push out the roughly 1,200 residents who remain. These residents have been fighting in Israeli courts for more than two decades to stop their expulsion, a battle which has slowed, but not stopped, the demolition of Palestinian homes there. Recently, an Israeli administrative body issued a decision which legal experts and activists have said could remove the last remaining legal barriers for the demolition of homes in Masafer Yatta. The decision could lead to the forcible transfer of 1,200 people, something the UN warned could be a war crime. 'This would amount to forcible transfer, which is a war crime. It could also amount to a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,' the UN human rights office said on 26 June. On 18 June, the civil administration's central planning bureau, the Israeli military agency that issues construction permits in occupied Palestinian territories, issued a directive that all pending building requests in Masafer Yatta be rejected. Previously, residents could file building planning requests and, while they were being examined, their structures could not legally be demolished. By cancelling all pending requests, the new directive dismisses all previously submitted cases without examining their particularities and gives demolitions the green light. The decision was made at the same time as Israeli authorities are pursuing sharply increased numbers of demolitions across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, destroying 933 structures since the beginning of the year, a record-breaking pace, according to UN data. As structures are demolished, more Palestinians are killed in the West Bank, with at least 950 killed and 9,000 injured by Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the war in Gaza on 7 October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities. The new directive cites a military planning document issued a day earlier, which said that firing zone 918 was necessary for combat preparedness and that the presence of civilian structures prevented training exercises. The document says: 'The practical condition for such [military training] access is the removal of the unauthorised constructions, thus enabling the IDF to conduct its training … No construction in the firing zone can be permitted.' It adds that for live-fire exercises to be conducted, the area needs to be 'sterile'. According to a lawyer representing residents of Masafer Yatta, Netta Amar-Shiff, the new directive bypasses a previous legal ruling and abrogates local laws, and could rapidly expedite the destruction of villages. 'If this directive is activated, it means planning institutions can dismiss building requests under military auspices, so no civilian construction and development can be approved. It's easier for them to eliminate entire villages,' Amar-Shiff said. Humanitarian organisations have long accused Israel of establishing firing zones as an excuse to push Palestinians off their land and expand settlement construction. About 18% of Area C, the parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, has been designated as firing zones. According to government meeting minutes in 1981, the then agriculture minister and future PM, Ariel Sharon, proposed the creation of firing zone 918 with the purpose of forcing Palestinians out of the area. In the meeting, Sharon told the IDF he wanted to expand shooting zones 'in order to keep these areas … in our hands', pointing to 'the expansion of the Arab villagers' in the area. In a comment, the Israeli military said the civil administration was 'holding ongoing discussions regarding villages built within the boundaries of firing zone 918' and that the military had a 'vital need for the area'. 'As a general rule, no approval will be granted for construction within the firing zone, which is designated as a closed military area,' the Israeli military said in a statement to the Guardian, adding that building permit requests were subject to approval by military command. To Awad, last week's decision is the latest attempt in a long line of court decisions and policies by the Israeli government to expel the residents of Masafer Yatta from their homes. In May 2022, Israel's high court ruled that the residents could be expelled and the land repurposed for military use, as it said villagers were not permanent residents of the area before the firing zone was declared. Residents and lawyers, relying on expert testimony and literature, said they had inhabited the area for decades. 'This decision was a clear way of cutting the last nerve of life that these people had,' said Awad, calling it part of a larger policy of 'ethnic cleansing of Palestinians'. Awad and the other residents of Masafer Yatta have spent more than two decades filing petitions, appeals, proposing master plans and submitting documents to try to fight the destruction of their community. 'We tried for many years to supply different documents and proofs and plans to the courts. But, after years of this, a commander in the army says no and that's enough,' said Nidal Younis, head of the Masafer Yatta council, in a press briefing late last month. As the residents navigate Israel's labyrinthine bureaucracy to stave off demolition orders, settlers have acted as the extrajudicial vanguard of displacement, making daily life nearly intolerable for Palestinians. Almost every single resident has a story about being harassed or attacked by nearby settlers, whose presence has been slowly growing, with new outposts popping up on the area's hilltops. In the early hours of 25 June, settlers set fire to Nasser Shreiteh's home in the town of Susiya, burning his kitchen and a bedroom almost entirely, running off as he tried to extinguish the fire. 'They want to evict everyone, they want everyone to disappear. But I am here, if they burn my house down, I will stay here, I have no other place to go,' said Shreiteh, a 50-year-old with seven children, as he overlooked the charred remains of his kitchen. As he spoke, an Israeli military patrol passed and behind it roared a beaten-up sedan driven by settlers, swerving in circles as the car's trunk swung open. They pulled up to Shreiteh's driveway and made an obscene hand gesture before driving off. Incidents of settler violence in the area have sharply increased since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza. The rise of the far-right, extremist ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir has provided political cover, allowing settlers to act with virtual impunity. Many settlers have been called to military reserves, where they serve around their settlements. Residents of Masafer Yatta said settlers would often walk around in military dress, such as combat trousers, which made it impossible to tell whether they were dealing with settlers or soldiers. Settler violence has escalated the tighter residents have clung to their land. In late January, settlers torched Awad's car, which he had used to transport children to school and residents to legal hearings. Souad al-Mukhamari, a 61-year-old resident of Sfai, another village in Masafer Yatta, complained that one of her granddaughters, a child, had been beaten and pepper-sprayed by a settler a month earlier. Her own home overlooked the debris of a school that was demolished in 2022. Palestinians can do little to protect themselves from settler violence, and are severely punished if they attempt to do so. They complain that Israeli authorities fail to protect them and do not follow up on their complaints. Legal advocates have said they expect little protection from Israel's legal system, but instead are looking to the international community to increase pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction and protect the rights of Palestinians. 'We don't see any possibility of internal change within Israel to protect these communities,' said Sarit Michaeli, an international advocacy officer at the Israeli human rights group B'tselem. 'The only way to stop this is whether there is clear international action to clarify to Israeli policymakers that actions have consequences,' she added. The Trump administration has expressed little interest in addressing illegal settlement construction and violence, lifting Biden-era sanctions on settlers. Instead, Michaeli said the EU could play a role in pressuring Israeli officials, especially as it announced at the end of May that it is reviewing its association agreement with Israel over human rights compliance concerns. As residents of Masafer Yatta wait for international action, they live under the constant threat of displacement and settler violence, their means of resistance all stripped away one at a time. Still, they are determined to stay. 'Just mentally we are preparing for more demolitions. There's nothing more on the ground we can do, besides putting our words in the media so they can reach farther than we can scream,' Awad said.
Middle East Eye
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Lebanese find bones and memories of Israeli abuse in Khiam's ruins
Mountains of rubble and debris line the roads in Khiam, on Lebanon's eastern border with Israel. Months of heavy fighting between Hezbollah and Israel have left most of the town unrecognisable. The buildings still standing are ridden with bullet holes. Some walls and doors have been entirely blasted off, revealing overturned furniture inside. Others bore traces of the presence of Israeli soldiers, who had occupied the area for around six weeks before withdrawing on 12 December. Trash left by Israeli forces is littered throughout homes, and walls have been vandalised with provocative graffiti. In one three-storey house, past the military schedules scrawled into the stairwell, Israeli soldiers had scattered their faeces in bags around the rooftop. Despite the destruction, Khiam's residents are still returning. Down one dusty lane, a group of neighbours were picnicking atop the rubble of their homes. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters They laughed as they passed plates of mujadara hamra, a traditional lentil dish from south Lebanon, sipped on hot coffee, and smoked from shisha pipes. 'One's soul has returned,' said 28-year-old Ali Awad, sitting next to his neighbour, Zainab Aqil. 'This is my home and this is her home,' he told Middle East Eye, pointing to the pile of shattered cinder blocks behind him. 'This is our village, we are rebuilding it, and we are bringing it back to life,' he said. A rainbow rises near the southern Lebanese border town of Khiam on 24 January 2025 (Rabih Daher/AFP) Awad and his neighbours have been staying in Nabatieh, about 24 kilometres west of Khiam, but have returned to their town every day since 26 January, the date originally set by the November ceasefire agreement for Israel and Hezbollah to withdraw from south Lebanon. However, Israel has accused Lebanon of not fully enforcing the agreement's terms and it was extended until 18 February. A key battleground Perched on a hill overlooking the Israeli border, Khiam saw some of the fiercest battles in Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. After Israel invaded the country last year, the strategic town became one of its key targets. In late October, Israeli forces entered Khiam and began to shell residential neighbourhoods. Over 20 people from two families - farmers who had stayed to tend to their land - were trapped inside the town, and lost contact with the outside. For a week, the UN's peacekeeping troops and the Lebanese Red Cross were prevented from rescuing the families, among them women and children. By the time the rescue workers entered, both families had been killed. Khiam's mukhtar (a local official responsible for records), who asked to go by Mukhtar Qassem, told MEE that over 100 people, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, had been killed in the town. 'We're here to pull out dad' In many border towns, like Khiam, the search for the dead could only begin after the withdrawal of Israeli troops. After months of being left under the rubble, many of the bodies have disintegrated to skeletons. Hussein Fakih, the head of Lebanon's civil defence in the Nabatieh governorate, told MEE that his teams were prevented from entering Khiam until the Israelis withdrew in December. He opened his phone to show haunting images of the bodies they had recovered recently from Khiam. One image showed a black bag filled with fragmented white bones. Another looked like a woman, her tattered dress still visible above her skeleton frame. A Lebanese army member stands near rubble at a damaged site in the Lebanese village of Khiam, 23 December 2024 (Karamallah Daher/Reuters) A roughly 30-minute drive south from Khiam, in the border village of Taybeh, Fakih's teams were also beginning to search for those killed. Israeli troops withdrew from Taybeh's city centre on 26 January, although they still remain positioned on its outskirts and have hit the area with two air strikes since their withdrawal. When MEE visited on 29 January, a search operation was underway in the ruins of the al-Zahra health clinic in Taybeh. Taybe's mayor, Abbas Ali Diab, said that on 3 October an Israeli strike hit the clinic, killing eight people inside, among them a doctor, nurse and a medic. 'One's soul has returned. This is our village, we are rebuilding it, and we are bringing it back to life' - Ali Awad, Khiam A bulldozer was digging through another heap of rubble. A group of women sat nearby, wearing all black. Some had tears in their eyes. 'We're here to pull out dad because he is still under the rubble,' 19-year-old Fatima Hijazi said. She was waiting with her mother for rescue workers to uncover her father's remains. Hijazi said her father was a member of Hezbollah, killed in an Israeli air strike on 3 October. Her brother also fought for the group, and was killed in 2015. Hijazi's home in Taybeh was not far from where her father was killed. During the war, her home had escaped significant damage, she said, as she walked to retrieve some books from her bedroom. Hijazi stayed with her family in the village during the war. However, after 27 November - when the ceasefire went into effect - Israeli troops entered Taybeh and she was forced to leave with her siblings and mother. 'I left during the ceasefire, because the strikes were very intense,' Hijazi said. Village left in ruins While Hijazi was gone, an Israeli bulldozer had ploughed into one side of her home, for no apparent reason - the damage making it unlivable. 'We can't stay in our house, we are fixing it,' she said. 'We are facing massive destruction. Unfortunately, this destruction took place over the past 10 days, even through a ceasefire that was supposed to be in place,' Taybeh's mayor, Diab, said. 'The Israeli enemy violated the truce and did not respect the international resolutions,' he added. Lebanon's southern villagers confront Israeli soldiers as they fight to return Read More » Lebanon has recorded at least 823 Israeli ceasefire violations since the agreement took effect. Israel said its attacks targeted Hezbollah's military infrastructure and 'threats' it said remained 'unaddressed'. Diab noted that about 60 percent of the village had been destroyed, as well as its water and power infrastructure. Peering into the hills in the distance, he said that the Israeli troops stationed around the village were preventing the municipality from repairing a water pumping station, which provided drinking water to roughly 40 villages in the area. 'There is neither water nor electricity, nor any means of livelihood,' he said. 'The Israeli enemy has destroyed everything that made life possible here.' Even the village's cemetery did not escape unscathed. For the first time in months, many residents of Taybeh returned to visit the gravestones of their loved ones. To their dismay, some gravestones were chipped while others were completely shattered. One young woman, Reem al-Shaar, said it had been over a year since she was able to visit her child's grave. 'The Israelis stopped me from visiting my baby, for a year and a half,' she said. When she came, she was shocked to see that much of the cemetery was in ruins, although luckily, her child's grave had not been damaged. Khiam's notorious prison Back in Khiam, a few residents strolled around the notorious Khiam detention centre, checking on its damage. The prison was set up in 1985 by Israel's local allies, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), during Israel's 18-year occupation of the south. The guards inflicted various forms of torture on the prisoners, including beating them with electronic rods, hanging them by their wrists, or locking them in small cells that resembled 'dog kennels'. 'The Israeli enemy has destroyed everything that made life possible here' - Abbas Ali Diab, Taybeh's mayor 'Israel knows that here, people can see its crimes,' 24-year-old Hadi Awada told MEE at the detention centre. During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli air strikes destroyed large parts of the prison compound. Again, in 2024, Israeli air strikes struck around the vicinity of the prison, causing minor damage. Two of Awada's uncles were imprisoned at the centre. One was held for 12 years, locked away when he was only 17 years old. 'The time he spent in prison was time taken from him. He was still a child, he hadn't seen anything, and he endured a lot of psychological trauma,' Awada said. Awada turned to a metal post at the centre. 'They would make the prisoners stand there, torture them… Many people died from the torture,' he said, recounting his uncles' stories. The prison was recaptured by Hezbollah during the Battle of Khiam in 2000, shortly before the Israelis withdrew from the south. Videos were shared widely of people breaking into the prison and releasing the detainees, who were mostly members of political organisations and parties opposed to the Israeli occupation. Awada said that prison needs to remain intact 'so that everyone can see what the Israelis have done, the extent of the atrocities, and the lack of humanity.' 'The humanity they boast about, this shows the opposite,' he stated.
