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Detention in the West Bank
Last weekend, as MS NOW stood in the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian Bedouin village demolished by settler attacks, a car carrying armed men pulled up and blocked the road before Israeli soldiers arrived and moved one of their vehicles to block it.
MS NOW said it was with aide Cam Kasky and seven others, including a driver, a New York Times photographer and security, and that they were held there for about 90 minutes as the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post and many other media outlets confirmed.
MS NOW said it was released because it is a member of Congress, and that David Brownstein, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, heroically intervened.
In Bethlehem, MS NOW said the wall runs over 400 miles, most of it well inside the West Bank rather than along any border, cutting through Palestinian villages and farmland and walling families off from their own fields, schools and relatives.
MS NOW described Hebron as a place where Palestinians walk under a canopy of metal netting devised to protect against bricks and stones that settlers living above hurl down, while it “does not stop the urine, acid or rotting garbage that are also heaved at fellow humans.”
Settler attacks and injuries
Al Jazeera reported that several Palestinians were injured in separate attacks across the occupied West Bank amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, citing the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Al Jazeera said a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the chest by Israeli forces in Bani Naim, east of Hebron, on Thursday, and that he was taken to hospital and is in a stable condition.
Al Jazeera also said settlers beat a 30-year-old man in Abu Njeim, southeast of Bethlehem, and that he was receiving treatment at a nearby hospital.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli settlers’ attacks have surged since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in 2023, and it cited the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) saying Israeli settlers had attacked Palestinians or their property six times a day on average so far this year.
Al Jazeera further reported that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” by Israel granting city status to the illegal settlement of Givat Ze’ev in the occupied West Bank.
Homes taken and land pressure
Mondoweiss said Israeli settlers escalated violent takeover of Palestinian homes in areas under Palestinian Authority control, moving to take over and occupy Palestinian homes on the edges of Palestinian towns and villages.
“Several Palestinians have been injured in separate attacks across the occupied West Bank amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports”
Mondoweiss reported that last Tuesday, July 14, Israeli settlers took control of a Palestinian home still under construction in Beit Imrin, Nablus, and that the village is part of Area A in the West Bank, the 18% of the territory supposedly under full PA control as of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Mondoweiss described a case in Jaloud, southeast of Nablus, where Muhammad Salameh said he spent almost 300,000 shekels [$100,000] in purchasing the land, building on top of it, and securing permits from the Palestinian authorities because the house is in Area B.
Mondoweiss quoted Salameh saying, “We spent almost 300,000 shekels [$100,000] in purchasing the land, building on top of it, and securing permits from the Palestinian authorities,” and it also quoted deputy mayor Misbah Hajj Muhammad saying, “Israeli settlers have been coming closer into areas they had never reached before.”
Mondoweiss added that Hajj Muhammad said Israeli settlers have taken control of 20,000 out of the village’s 22,000 dunams (2,200 hectares) of land, and that “Now, we are facing the threat of settlement expansion into the village,” while Jamal Jumaa said the strategy is to increase pressure on the villages and towns by taking houses as outposts from which to harass the rest of the community.
