Eye on Jerusalem discusses B'Tselem report on Israeli occupation violations in the West Bank

The third mechanism is 'restriction of movement and transit through military gates, checkpoints, and road closures', the fourth is 'economic suffocation' through the withholding of Palestinian revenues, the tightening of the financial system and infrastructure, and the increase in Palestinian unemployment due to the mass cancellation of work permits in Israel. The fifth mechanism is what the organization described as'social and political destruction' through the criminalization of Palestinian civil society organizations, the banning of their activities, and the arrest of activists, students, and journalists.

The program's report noted what the organization's Director General, Yuli Novak, said during the announcement of the report, that Israel has systematically undermined the foundations of Palestinian collective existence in the West Bank over three years, in parallel with consolidating its control and strengthening Jewish presence to become a permanent reality.

The program's camera documented part of the violations mentioned in the report in the Bedouin community of Abi Fazaa, located near the town of Taybeh east of Ramallah, where families live in an open prison due to near-daily settler attacks, forcing residents to guard their lands and monitor them via screens to detect any potential attacks by settlers.

Residents of the community confirmed that settlers had established a settlement 50 meters from their community, which became a center for launching attacks on the community residents using various means and methods, including smashing cars and controlling and cutting off water and electricity meters.

For his part, Karim Jubran, Field Research Director at the B'Tselem Human Rights Organization, said that this report is the most important report issued by the organization in the past 37 years, as it comprehensively addressed Israeli violations and brought together all directions of Israeli violations against Palestinian citizens, attempting to identify what unites these violations and label them by their true name, which is 'the erasure of Palestinian collective existence in the occupied West Bank'.

He added that the erasure project is part of a colonial settlement project, one of whose main aspects is racial discrimination, which uses many tools, noting that these tools are not new and are violations that the occupation has used over long years, but have been intensified in recent years.

Jubran pointed out that the danger of the Israeli colonial settlement project lies in the fact that it is a'state project', and its tools are directed through it, as it mobilizes all its capabilities to serve these tools. The occupation has practiced a policy of repression and incursions over many years, escalating in the last three years to the point where violence has turned into direct killings, resulting in the martyrdom of 1107 Palestinians, 38 of whom were killed by settlers, while 18 were killed without knowing the source of the bullets, and more than 10,000 Palestinians were arrested and tortured, indicating a close cooperation between settlers and Israeli forces.

He explained that the erasure policy began before the current government, pointing out that at the end of 2021, the rules of engagement were changed to allow Israeli soldiers to use live ammunition against Palestinian citizens suspected of throwing stones, even if they were children, which increased the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers to 146 in 2022, and 200 martyrs in 2023 until October 6, confirming the existence of these policies before October 7.

Jubran affirmed that the colonial project is based on the policy of ethnic cleansing, the deportation of Palestinians, and the replacement of settlers in their place, noting the deportation of more than 65 Palestinian communities since October 7, 2023, through the establishment of more than 185 pastoral outposts within these communities, which have taken control of about one million dunums of land in these communities, representing 18% of the West Bank's area.

He explained that the Israeli occupation has established 925 checkpoints, earth mounds, and iron gates in the West Bank to cut off the West Bank, limit the movement of Palestinian citizens, and make a Palestinian's journey to work, school, or hospital for treatment a 'journey of agony', without any guarantee of returning home safely.

Jubran concluded that Israel is trying to transfer its experience of genocide in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, as evidenced by the displacement of about 30,000 Palestinians from northern West Bank camps, alongside the daily ethnic cleansing operations carried out by the Israeli army in the West Bank, and the occupation's declaration of a 'quasi-declared' war on all cities and areas of the West Bank.

Jubran emphasized that the 'erasure' policy also includes the city of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in its entirety, in parallel with what is happening in all occupied Palestinian territories, and that Al-Aqsa is facing a fierce attack seeking to Judaize it and impose a new reality in it.