Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

Special Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war
A Palestinian activist lifts a national flag and flashes the victory sign as Israeli armoured vehicles including a bulldozer drive on a street during a raid in Tulkarem on September 3, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 27 November 2024
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Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war
  • ACRI accuses Netanyahu govt. of “excessive, unrestrained and illegal use of force” in occupied territory in a new report
  • Says govt. is “implementing profound changes to all aspects of control, most of which are flying under the radar”

LONDON: On Oct. 12 last year, a group of armed settlers and Israeli soldiers drove into the West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq, 10 kilometers east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

There, they seized and handcuffed three Palestinian men, subjecting them to hours of abuse and violence, later compared by one of the victims to the treatment meted out by rogue US soldiers to prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.

The abuses in Wadi Al-Seeq were led by members of the IDF’s Sfar Hamidbar (Desert Frontier) unit, notorious for recruiting into its ranks violent “hilltop youth” from the illegal farming settlements that are proliferating in the West Bank with the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes, and is dependent on the support of, far-right parties.

“For hours,” as an Israeli newspaper reported on Oct. 21, 2023, the Palestinians “were severely beaten, stripped to their underwear, and photographed handcuffed.

“Their captors urinated on two of them and extinguished burning cigarettes on them. There was even an attempt to penetrate one of them with an object.”




Palestinians bound and stripped after being apprehended by IDF soldiers and settlers in the central West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq on October 12, 2023. (The Times of Israel)

Israeli human rights activists who arrived at the scene were also arrested, cuffed, beaten, threatened with death and, like the Palestinians, robbed.

At the time, many in Israel were shocked to read the reports of the joint operation between the IDF and settlers, exposed by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

But as a new report from an Israeli human rights group makes clear, such events have become commonplace as, under cover of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli government and its agencies have been pursuing the ultimate goal of “realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”

In the report, “One year of war: the collapse of human and civil rights in Israel and the West Bank,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) accuses the government of “excessive, unrestrained, and illegal use of force.”

Furthermore, it says, Netanyahu’s government is “demolishing the judicial system and the civil service with the aim of accumulating unlimited power; increasing the use of force in the West Bank and granting tacit permission for unrestrained settler violence; using force to limit freedom of expression and protest; and systematically violating the rights of detainees and prisoners.”




Israeli settlers march towards the outpost of Eviatar, near the Palestinian village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

The list of charges levelled against the government is long, including institutionalized discrimination against Arab society, “unprecedented” infringement of the rights of suspects and prisoners, the “mass armament and creation of untrained forces” of settlers, the “destruction of democratic foundations,” attacks on freedom of expression and “normalization of citizen surveillance and disregard for privacy.”

Legislative steps are being taken with the aim of excluding certain parties from running for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Last month a controversial bill was passed to change the rules for banning individuals or parties from membership of the Knesset if they have “supported terror,” a definition which now includes visiting the family of someone accused of an act of terrorism.

Likud, Netanyahu’s party, has even accused Arab members of the Knesset of supporting terror simply on the ground of their support for Palestinian statehood.

“Depriving a population of the right to protest politically and the right to political representation” is “a very slippery slope,” said Noa Sattath, the CEO of ACRI.

“When there’s no political representation of a minority, then there's a radicalization of that minority.”

IN NUMBERS

  • 733 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • 40 Israelis killed during the same period.
  • 3,340 Palestinians in administrative detention as of last June.
  • 11,800 Palestinians arrested since current conflict erupted.

What the ACRI report exposes on a grand scale, says Sattath, is “the excessive use of power. Of course, we see it in Gaza, and in Lebanon now, but we also see it in the West Bank.

“We also see it being used against Israeli protesters. We’re also seeing it in the treatment of prisoners. In all walks of life, basically, the Israeli government has moved to using excessive power against the different players, rather than making more complicated decisions.”

The headline scandal of the past year is what ACRI describes as “the quiet coup” in the West Bank.

“With public attention focused elsewhere,” says the report, “the government is implementing profound changes to all aspects of control in the West Bank, most of which are flying under the radar.

“In the last two years, the government has made giant strides in advancing policies aimed at accelerating the annexation process of the West Bank, while establishing Jewish supremacy and marginalizing the Palestinian population, all in pursuit of realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”




A member of the Israeli security forces walks past a bulldozer demolishing a house belonging to Palestinians in the southern area of the occupied West Bank on November 6, 2024. (AFP)

The annexation of the West Bank has long been on the agenda, said Sattath, “but the war has given cover and enabled this to happen.

“Basically, they’re creating a new reality on the ground, behind the scenes, without a lot of public scrutiny, without a lot of international discourse on this new reality that they’re manufacturing.”

The Israeli government has, in certain instances, issued statements that aim to distance itself from the violent actions of settlers in the West Bank. Netanyahu has occasionally called for calm and condemned settler attacks on Palestinians, especially after high-profile incidents.

However, ACRI fears that under the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, whose election has been welcomed so enthusiastically by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, things are only going to get worse.




A member of the Israeli security forces scuffles with a protestor as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists demonstrate at the entrance of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, on March 3, 2023. (AFP)

“I think that the next years are going to be very difficult,” said Sattath.

“The US government is one of the only checks and balances on the behavior of the Israeli government behavior and, even if we would have liked them to be more forceful in the way that they do it, we're very worried that the disappearance of that will have grave implications for the lives of Palestinians, both in Gaza, where the US is currently so involved in the humanitarian aid efforts there, and in the West Bank.”

Disturbingly, she says, Israel is manoeuvring behind the scenes to end the status of the West Bank as an occupied territory under military occupation, which is how it has been defined by international law since the occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967.




A picture shows burnt cars, which were set ablaze by Israeli settlers, in the area of in Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank on June 21, 2023. (AFP)

“It seems a little strange that an organization like ACRI would be advocating for military occupation,” she said. 

“But under international conventions military occupation gives the protected citizens of that area many different rights and gives the occupiers obligations. 

“Residents in occupied territories cannot be moved. You cannot build on their territory and the occupying force has all sorts of obligations toward them, in terms of humanitarian aid. 

“Now, what the settler movement, through its ministers in the government, is trying to do is erase the military occupation, replacing it with government agencies and officials to facilitate the settlement enterprise.” 




A Palestinian man walks at the village of Khallet Al-Daba, in the occupied West Bank on October 26, 2023, after it was attacked by Israeli settlers. (AFP)

The process began in February 2023 when, despite disquiet among some members of Netanyahu’s government, authority over many civilian issues in the West Bank was stripped from Defense Ministry agency COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and transferred to Bezalel Smotrich, the religious Zionism leader and finance minister. 

According to a Times of Israel report, the agreement “appears to give the ultranationalist leader sweeping powers over the territory, and allows him to advance his goal of thwarting Palestinian aspirations for a state in the West Bank by enabling the Israeli population there to substantially expand.”

Anti-settlement organizations denounced the agreement, with one, Breaking the Silence, saying it amounted to “legal, de jure annexation,” of the West Bank.

The importance of ACRI’s report, says Sattath, lies in the sheer breadth of abuses by the Israeli government it exposes.




Israeli security forces fire tear gas at Palestinians demonstrating in the village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

ACRI, founded in 1972 and the oldest civil and human rights organization in Israel, has been publishing reports on the state of human rights in Israel and the West Bank for decades. But, she says, “we have never published a report showing such a severe and comprehensive deterioration as we have seen over the past year.”

ACRI says it hopes its report “will deepen the public’s understanding of the damage being done to human rights and democratic institutions, and that it will stir the public to action and resistance.”

It added: “Monitoring human rights violation processes is also critical for there to be any hope of correction under a different government and reality.”

 


UAE court sentences killers of Israeli-Moldovan to death

UAE court sentences killers of Israeli-Moldovan to death
Updated 49 min 55 sec ago
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UAE court sentences killers of Israeli-Moldovan to death

UAE court sentences killers of Israeli-Moldovan to death
  • Three defendants sentenced to death, fourth jailed for life
  • Zvi Kogan’s body was found a few days after he disappeared in Dubai in November

LONDON: A court in the UAE has sentenced three people to death for the kidnap and murder of the Israeli-Moldovan man Zvi Kogan.

A fourth defendant was given a life sentence for being an accomplice to the killing in November, the UAE state news agency WAM reported on Monday.

The four defendants were “unanimously convicted” by the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeals’ State Security Chamber for the “premeditated murder with terrorist intention” of Kogan.

The body of Kogan, 28, was found a few days after he went missing in Dubai. Within days, the UAE said it had arrested three Uzbek men as the main suspects and thanked Turkiye for helping to detain them.

Attorney General Hamad Saif Al-Shamsi said the verdict reflected the UAE’s “unwavering commitment to combating terrorism.”

He said the UAE judiciary confronts “any attempts to undermine national security and stability” and added that the Emirates is a global model of “coexistence and tolerance, where its laws protect all residents, regardless of religion or ethnicity, ensuring their safety and security.”

During their investigation, prosecutors found that the defendants had tracked and murdered Kogan. 

The defendants gave detailed confessions and were also linked to the crime with forensic reports, the post-mortem examination, instruments used in the crime, and witness testimonies.


Hamas calls on ‘anyone who can bear arms’ worldwide to fight Trump’s Gaza plan

Hamas calls on ‘anyone who can bear arms’ worldwide to fight Trump’s Gaza plan
Updated 31 March 2025
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Hamas calls on ‘anyone who can bear arms’ worldwide to fight Trump’s Gaza plan

Hamas calls on ‘anyone who can bear arms’ worldwide to fight Trump’s Gaza plan
  • Netanyahu said Israel was working toward a plan proposed by Trump to displace Gazans to other countries

CAIRO: A senior Hamas official on Monday called on supporters worldwide to pick up weapons and fight US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate more than two million Gazans to neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
“In the face of this sinister plan — one that combines massacres with starvation — anyone who can bear arms, anywhere in the world, must take action,” Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.
“Do not withhold an explosive, a bullet, a knife, or a stone. Let everyone break their silence.”
Abu Zuhri’s call comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to let Hamas leaders leave Gaza but demanded that the Palestinian militant group disarm in the final stages of the war in Gaza.
Hamas has expressed a willingness to relinquish Gaza’s administration, but has warned its weapons are a “red line.”
Netanyahu said Israel was working toward a plan proposed by Trump to displace Gazans to other countries.
Netanyahu said that after the war, Israel would ensure overall security in Gaza and “enable the implementation of the Trump plan” — which had initially called for the mass displacement of all 2.4 million people living in the Palestinian territory — calling it a “voluntary migration plan.”
Days after taking office in January, Trump floated a proposal to move Gaza’s population out of the war-battered territory, suggesting that Egypt or Jordan could take them in.
Both countries, along with other Arab allies, governments around the world and the Palestinians themselves, have flatly rejected the notion.
Trump later appeared to backtrack on the proposal, saying he was “not forcing” his widely condemned plan.
“Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians,” Trump said at the White House in mid-March, remarks welcomed by Egypt, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).


Arab nations have since come up with an alternative plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip without relocating its people, which would take place under the future administration of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
For Palestinians, any attempts to force them out of Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz in February said that a special agency would be established for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.
A defense ministry statement said an initial plan included “extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wishes to emigrate voluntarily to a third country to receive a comprehensive package, which includes, among other things, special departure arrangements via sea, air, and land.”
Israel resumed intense bombing of Gaza on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war with Hamas.
Since the fighting restarted, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says that at least 1,001 people have been killed.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 50,357 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.


US airstrikes pound Yemen overnight, killing at least 3, Houthis say

US airstrikes pound Yemen overnight, killing at least 3, Houthis say
Updated 31 March 2025
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US airstrikes pound Yemen overnight, killing at least 3, Houthis say

US airstrikes pound Yemen overnight, killing at least 3, Houthis say
  • Strikes around Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and Hajjah governorate also wounded 12

DUBAI: Suspected US airstrikes struck around Yemen’s Houthi-held capital overnight into Monday morning, attacks that the group said killed at least three people.
The full extent of the damage wasn’t immediately clear. The attacks followed a night of airstrikes early Friday that appeared particularly intense compared to other days in the campaign that began March 15.
The strikes around Sanaa, Yemen’s capital held by the Houthis since 2014, and Hajjah governorate also wounded 12 others, the rebels said.
Their Al-Masirah satellite news channel aired footage of broken glass littering homes in Sanaa after the concussive blast of the bombs, but continued not to show the targets of the attacks — suggesting the sites had a military or intelligence function. Strikes there killed one person, the Houthis said.
Another strike targeting a pickup truck in Hajjah killed two people and wounded a child, the Houthis said. It marked the first, publicly known time the American strikes targeted a vehicle in this campaign.
An Associated Press review has found the new American operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump appears more extensive than those under former President Joe Biden, as the US moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in cities.
The new campaign of airstrikes, which the Houthis now say have killed at least 61 people, started after the group threatened to begin targeting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels in the past loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning other vessels could be targeted.
The Houthis had targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year. They also launched attacks targeting American warships, though none has been hit so far.
The attacks greatly raised the Houthis’ profile as they faced economic problems and launched a crackdown targeting any dissent and aid workers at home amid Yemen’s decadelong stalemated war that has torn apart the Arab world’s poorest nation.


Syria president says new authorities can’t satisfy everyone

Syria president says new authorities can’t satisfy everyone
Updated 31 March 2025
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Syria president says new authorities can’t satisfy everyone

Syria president says new authorities can’t satisfy everyone
  • President Ahmed Al-Sharaa announced transitional 23-member cabinet on Saturday
  • Sharaa said the new government’s goal was rebuilding the country

DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday a new transitional government would aim for consensus in rebuilding the war-torn country but acknowledged it would be unable to satisfy everyone.
The transitional 23-member cabinet — without a prime minister — was announced Saturday, more than three months after Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led an offensive that toppled longtime president Bashar Assad.
The autonomous Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria has rejected the government’s legitimacy, saying it “does not reflect the country’s diversity.”
Sharaa said the new government’s goal was rebuilding the country but warned that “will not be able to satisfy everyone.”
“Any steps we take will not reach consensus — this is normal — but we must reach a consensus” as much as possible, he told a gathering at the presidential palace broadcast on Syrian television after prayers for the Eid Al-Fitr Muslim holiday.
Authorities are seeking to reunite and rebuild the country and its institutions after nearly 14 years of civil war.
Some of Sharaa’s closest supporters and other figures aligned with him make up the majority of the new cabinet.
Sharaa said the ministers were chosen for their competence and expertise, “without particular ideological or political orientations.”
Most members are Sunni Muslim, reflecting the demographic make-up of Syria, ruled for decades by the Assad clan which belongs to the Alawite minority.
Amid international calls for an inclusive transition, the new government has four ministers from minority groups in Syria — a Christian, a Druze, a Kurd and an Alawite, none of whom were handed key portfolios.
Sharaa said the new government’s make-up took into consideration “the diversity of Syrian society” while rejecting a quota system for religious or ethnic minorities, instead opting for “participation.”
“A new history is being written for Syria... we are all writing it,” he told the gathering.
This month, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration regulating the country’s transitional period, set for five years.
Some experts and rights groups have warned that it concentrates power in Sharaa’s hands and fails to include enough protections for minorities.
This month also saw the worst sectarian bloodshed since Assad’s overthrow, with civilian massacres in Alawite-majority areas.
Sharaa has previously vowed to prosecute those behind the “bloodshed of civilians” and set up a fact-finding committee.


Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war

Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
Updated 31 March 2025
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Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war

Freed Israeli hostage Bibas calls on Trump to stop Gaza war
  • Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir
  • Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory

JERUSALEM: Former Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and children were killed while held by Gaza militants, has urged US President Donald Trump to press Israel to end the war to rescue the remaining captives.
In a first interview since being released from the Gaza Strip in February, under a truce deal that has since collapsed, Bibas said Israel’s resumption of military operations this month would not help free the dozens of hostages still held in the Palestinian territory.
“Please stop this war, and help bring all the hostages back,” Bibas said, addressing Trump in an interview with CBS News “60 Minutes” aired late Sunday.
“I know he can help,” said Bibas.
“I’m here because of Trump, I’m here only because of him, I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again.”
Palestinian militants abducted Yarden Bibas, his wife Shiri nad their two young boys Ariel and Kfir, during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which triggered the war.
The family — and particularly four-year-old Ariel and Kfir, who was just eight months old when taken captive — became a symbol of the hostage tragedy in Israel.
Israeli authorities have accused Hamas of murdering Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas “in cold blood.”
Hamas said in November 2023 that all three were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit the location where they were being held. Their bodies were returned in February, after the father’s release.
Yarden Bibas, asked if he thought the resumed fighting in Gaza could encourage Hamas to release hostages, replied: “No.”
Israel resumed intense bombing on March 18 and then launched a new ground offensive, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire in the war in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued was proving effective in swaying Hamas negotiators.
Bibas told CBS News that while he was held in Gaza, Israeli bombardment was “scary, you don’t know when it’s going to happen, and when it happens, you’re afraid for your life.”
Of the 251 hostages seized during the 2023 attack, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The truce since January saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including some who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody.