Israel continues to destroy what is left of Gaza with American bombs, slaughtering 50 or more souls daily as they try to survive in flimsy tents on a starvation diet of bread and water, if they are lucky. A genocide is happening now with media silence. After invading Lebanon and killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians, an emboldened Israel has bombed another sovereign country, Syria.
Israel boasts of an historic 500 fighter jet attacks in 48 hours and invades the Syrian demilitarised zone of the Golan Heights. Meanwhile the IDF quietly, away from the world’s media, continues to support well armed vicious white-shirted settler youth to take more and more Palestinian land on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. The fact that there has been little media coverage of what’s happening in the Occupied West Bank these past 15 months, has enabled Israel to take large swaths of “disappearing” Palestine.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 796 Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank including 168 children since October 2023, and over 6,000 have been wounded; among them nearly one thousand children. Over 11,800 Palestinians have been detained in that period, including journalists, 850 children and former prisoners, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society. Save the Children has documented an alarming escalation of abuses against children since October 2023. Many Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons suffer physical abuse, strip searches and even sexual violence on top of hunger, overcrowding and exposure to diseases like scabies.
The B’Tselem’s report released in early December this year titled ‘Unleashed‘, describes how the extreme violence unleashed on Palestinians this past year has changed the norms of conduct in the military. Every soldier has been granted virtually unlimited power to use violent means of oppression and they know that they will not be held accountable. The report revealed that the violence was aimed at men, women, teenagers and children with victims describes as being randomly seized by soldiers, mostly as they were walking down the streets going about their daily affairs. “They were beaten and subjected to severe abuse by soldiers, sometimes in the street, and at other times inside military outposts where they were taken”, the report says. Several victims recounted varying degrees of sexual violence and physical humiliation, ranging from explicit threats of rape, to forced undressing and strong blows to the genitals with threats of rape. “Most of the victims were abused while blindfolded with their hands tied and forced to stay in painful positions for hours on end. Some were forced to sit in the scorching sun for hours, and others in a room with freezing air conditioning.”
As Paul Heywood-Smith (P&I 11-12-2024) correctly pointed out there has been numerous UN Security Council Resolutions this year, and a significant ICJ Advisory Opinion ruling in July regarding the illegality of Israel’s settlements on Palestinian land. This Advisory Opinion has now been passed by the UNGA directing Israel to evacuate settlements and enact reparations for damage caused both in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Australia, finally it must be added, has found its moral voice and voted along with 156 other countries at the UNGA, to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”. Australia also last week voted with the majority of the UNGA calling for an immediate cease fire in Gaza and ongoing financial and political support for UNRWA. The response from Israel’s far right government has been to accelerate settlement permissions and to openly discuss annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
To that end It should be recalled that soon after his appointment to his current position as Minister of Finance, Mr Smotrich moved quickly to approve thousands of new settlement homes and legalised previously unauthorised settlements. This made it more difficult for Palestinians to build homes and move around unauthorised settlements.
The intention of Israel’s far right government has been clear for some time. The Israeli Cabinet on 18 June 2024 gave Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, approval to plan construction of even more settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This was followed by his order on 12 November 2024 to start preparations for the annexation of the Occupied West Bank. There are already some 720,000 illegal Israeli settlers living in 250 settlements on Palestinian land living alongside nearly three million Palestinians.
Israel continues to wilfully ignore the will of the majority of the world’s nations as represented at the UNGA. It is silencing its own home critics attacking the only newspaper attempting to report the governments crimes, Haaretz, and ignoring thousands of its own citizens calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages. And now its leader is in the dock being charged with corruption crimes and others.
A new report by The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media released on December 10th this year titled ‘Intensification of Surveillance in East Jerusalem Since October 2023’, highlights the intensification of this silencing through Israeli surveillance and digital control policies that have increased over the past year. The report notes that, “these measures have included mass arrests based on digital activities, arbitrary dismissals from workplaces and educational institutions, and an increased reliance on advanced technologies such as facial recognition systems, drones, and spyware”.
Across the region the American supported Israeli war machine has caused untold slaughter and destruction and the West Bank has not been spared. According to OCHA, between 7 October 2023 and 31 October 2024 the IDF has demolished over 1,528 Palestinian owned structures resulting in the displacement of 3,637 Palestinians. This includes 700 residences, nearly 400 agricultural infrastructure structures and 205 shops and businesses. In total these demolitions have impacted on 40,557 Palestinians since the start of the year. There has also been around 1,500 illegal settler attacks in various areas of the occupied West Bank. These included armed attacks on Palestinian villages, field executions, vandalism, land levelling, uprooting trees, seizing property, closures and setting up checkpoints.
On December 3, the IDF stormed the Turkish government hospital in the city of Tubas in the northern occupied West Bank and arrested a number of doctors, including the hospital director, going into wards and shooting wildly, terrifying the patients. MSF (Doctors without Borders) reports that incursions from Israeli forces are increasing more frequent and with more violent intensity. Blockages of access to healthcare are common, roads are blocked, ambulances cannot move, healthcare workers are harassed and targeted or otherwise hindered, and wounded people often cannot reach hospitals.
There has been a record surge in settlement activities since 7 October 2023 including the construction of outposts, roads, fences and roadblocks initiated by settlers with the endorsement or acquiescence of authorities. Settlers have increasingly seized control of Area C in the West Bank, marginalising the Palestinian population. These infrastructure developments, including roads that service-only settlements, jeopardised any practical possibility of a contiguous Palestinian State. The administrative powers now given to the Minister relating to civil administration of land and settlements, gives the Government of Israel’s “application of sovereignty” power over the West Bank and is part of its plan to incorporate the West Bank into the territory of Israel.
Are all the UN judgements and rulings on Palestinian sovereignty too late and if not who will implement them?